Hopeful news from đź’© data
Omicron stinks big time. But there’s hope on the horizon, popping up in the most unexpected of places – our collective poop.
Tracking 💩 – aka “wastewater surveillance” – is a proven way to predict the overall burden of infection in a community. Happily, 💩 trends are ⬇️ nationwide.
It sure would be nice to hit a speedy (aka exponential) downhill run on the epidemic curve. For now, we continue to boost our SMARTTS (Space, Mask, Airflow, Time restrictions, Testing, and Shots) to help give our health care heroes some relief. Hospitalization trends lag infection trends, so things are likely to stay tough for a little while longer on the health care frontlines.
We don’t need to entirely eliminate infection risk to be helpers – zero risk isn’t a practical or even ideal goal for most of us. (Hello fellow moms who are doubling as constant risk calculators these days. We see you. We are you. It is so hard.) If we all play our part to temporarily turn down the risk-o-meter the best we can, we are contributing to the solution. (Turning down the risk-o-meter is called “harm reduction” in public health. Good related reading below).
Hang in there, community. We will keep on with our data diligence, regardless of how dirty our metaphorical hands may have to get.
With love,
Your Nerdy Girls
References:
Image credit and other national data reported via
Wastewater surveillance explainer
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