Poop May Be Our Newest Ally in the Fight Against COVID-19
Poop. Yes, it's gross. Just the thought of it can be disgusting but surprisingly it may be our newest ally in the fight against COVID-19.
Why? Well, because "poop isn't just the remains of the food you ate," explains SciShow's Hank Green.
"It also includes wastes your body wants to get rid of like dead white blood cells as well as microbes and viruses that get picked along the way." And where does all this go? In sewage of course.
So, in reality, it is sewage that may be our newest ally in the fight against the coronavirus. Testing sewage allows you to test a lot of people in an area through their excrements.
In sewage, scientists are now looking to see how much of the coronavirus is there to determine how many people are infected by region. It further turns out that SARS-CoV-2 can infect and multiply in cells in the gut.
This means the virus may enter stool more directly and even remain infectious. This is another good reason to test sewage for the virus and a few studies have done just that.
Where did those studies occur and what did they find out? We will let the good people at SciShow tell you that.