TEMPE, AZ — The tripledemic in Arizona is not slowing down. Cases of COVID-19 are in the thousands each week and the Arizona Department of Health Services says flu and RSV activity is high.
More than 5,100 flu cases were reported in the state last week, putting the season total at nearly 18,000. Typically, there are less than 500 weekly cases at this time. As for RSV, there are 1,200 new cases and 11,500 new COVID-19 cases.
As cases of respiratory viruses continue to rise, researchers are turning to wastewater for answers.
The city of Tempe says they were the first in the world to use special technology to track COVID-19 and display the data on a public dashboard. It uses what you flush down the toilet and into the sewage system, to get results.
It sounds messy and unconventional, but the city was already tracking wastewater in certain neighborhoods to monitor opioid use. The city began tracking COVID-19 the same way at the start of the pandemic.
Working with Arizona State University, they've now released the results of their study.
It shows the town of Guadalupe saw the highest infection rate at the start of the pandemic. The study states they were able to alert hospital staff and provide more resources to the area to get the virus under control.
ASU Professor Rolf Halden says their research shows using technology to get ahead of the virus can be lifesaving.
"That is the true power of identifying risks early, using an early warning system and we've seen our results and demonstrated that over the past year," he said. "We can see the threat up to three weeks before people present at hospitals and actually hospitals locally use our data to predict hospital bed occupation."
It's not just COVID-19 they continue to track. Halden says they are already looking into how they can use this technology to track other viruses like mpox, RSV, and polio.
