COVID wastewater levels are the highest they’ve been in 2 years
The concentration of COVID-19 in Greater Boston's wastewater is at the second-highest level since the start of the pandemic.
COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Massachusetts, and levels of the virus in Greater Boston’s wastewater are now at their second-highest point since the start of the pandemic.
The weekly average of COVID-19 in wastewater from Boston and communities north of the city was 2,743 copies per milliliter on New Year’s Day, according to data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Communities south of Boston, meanwhile, had a seven-day average of 2,583 copies per milliliter.
COVID in Mass.:
Those numbers mark a sharp uptick even from early December — an early warning sign of a potential surge. However, the current wastewater figures are still just a fraction of what they were during the January 2022 omicron surge that overwhelmed emergency rooms.
For example, on Jan. 3, 2022, COVID-19 wastewater levels reached a seven-day average of 8,353 copies per milliliter in the MWRA’s northern system and 11,446 copies per milliliter in the south.
Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the JN.1 variant — a new, highly contagious strain of COVID-19 — accounts for about 62% of all current cases in the U.S.
The Boston Globe reported last month that the JN.1 variant appears to be better at evading existing immunity, which could lead to a surge in hospitalizations as more people fall ill. The good news: The latest booster shots have been shown to protect against the new strain, according to the Globe, and the CDC reported that there is no evidence at this time that JN.1 causes more severe illness.
“I don’t think it’s a five-alarm fire,” Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-leader of the viral variants program at the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, told the Globe last month.
But, he added, “I do think it’s an indication that the fire remains burning and could burn out of control at any point. People can protect themselves best by getting boosted and by getting diagnostic testing promptly if they experience symptoms.”