Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash
Researchers are testing wastewater, pre-treatment, to try to estimate the prevalence of Covid in the community. Similar testing was done in Holland.
Importantly these tested for pieces of Covid RNA not for intact infectious whole viruses.
This is not a new idea.
Testing wastewater can be useful to detect the presence of a virus in the community before clinical cases might be found. Similarly when wastewater becomes negative it is likely the virus is no longer circulating.
This again, does not document that wastewater is infectious even before treatment, nor whether the treatment of wastewater would kill intact Covid if it were present.
So while golfing eagle may be rolling on the ground laughing about whether there might be a risk of using wastewater on the golf course, others are not laughing.
An article meant to reassure that there is no risk has this:
Note that the reassurance is for drinking water that has been chlorinated. Drinking water is held to a much higher requirement than irrigation water. That's why there is a warning sign at each golf course that the water is not potable [not safe for drinking].
I do not know what method is used here to treat grey water, nor whether chlorine is specifically used at a level adequate to be viricidal. |
And if I see people taking a shower in their lawn sprinklers, I'll be more serious, well just a little more. Until then, the aluminum foil is in aisle 7.