Forecasting Future Diseases With Every Flush

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The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, epidemiologists looked to our sewers to help figure out the scale of the virus’ spread. It worked, giving some public health officials a heads-up before Covid surges. Now, researchers are taking the lessons from that pandemic, and working to put the wastewater from bathing, toilets, laundry machines and dishwashers to use in monitoring the spread of other diseases. WSJ’s Danny Lewis speaks with environmental microbiologist, engineer and epidemiologist Marlene Wolfe about why it’s so important to look at wastewater if we want to stop the next pandemic. Further reading: For Future Viral Threats, Health Officials Look to Sewage - WSJ From the Sewers, Clues to Covid-19’s Next Moves - WSJ CDC Will Test Sewage for Polio in Some U.S. Communities - WSJ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We are drowning in plastic, but what if instead of throwing it away, we could make old plastics
0:07.0	into something useful?
0:08.7	How, you ask?
0:10.2	Check out the future of everything podcast from The Wall Street Journal.
0:18.1	I think my morning routine is pretty standard and pretty hectic.
0:22.6	Wake up.
0:23.6	Shower.
0:24.6	Brush my teeth.
0:28.9	Get some business done.
0:33.1	Feed my cats.
0:34.7	Brew some coffee, make some breakfast, clean up a bit, and I'm out the door to catch the
0:39.2	train.
0:41.2	I do this almost every day.
0:43.0	And with every shower, flush, and dish scrubbed, wastewater, full of all this stuff goes down
0:49.3	into the sewer.
0:50.6	And along with all my DNA, food scraps, and soap sets, that wastewater carries signs
0:55.4	of disease too.
0:57.4	Water monitoring is it new?
0:59.4	But during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became a vital tool for detecting the virus in communities
1:04.2	and even helped forecast some outbreaks.
1:07.4	Since then, I mean, we have continued to do a lot of work looking at COVID, measuring
1:12.0	the SARS-CoV-2 virus, looking at specific variants at a population level by making these
	...

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