Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers and health officials have investigated the possibility of identifying coronavirus hotspots — including those with asymptomatic carriers — by examining wastewater samples for traces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
To date, that wastewater monitoring has occurred mostly on the scale of either an entire city or an individual building. But the former is too broad to provide much context on specific hotspots, and the latter too narrow to inform public health decisions.
