Wastewater can predict COVID-19 surges, but NYC’s data remains elusive

Since early 2020, New York City has become a pioneer of wastewater surveillance, a method of tracking diseases in sewage that gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. But city agencies are not being transparent about what they’re finding in our waste or how the data is used to inform public health decisions, according to a monthslong reporting collaboration between Gothamist and MuckRock.

According to interviews with current and former employees, as well as City Council hearings, workers running the wastewater program struggled during the first year of the pandemic to access the resources they needed to test sewage samples from the city’s 14 treatment plants — the largest municipal water network in the country. Meanwhile, the health department lacked capacity to develop analysis and communications strategies for this newer type of public health data.

Wastewater data are now publicly posted and the testing program has resources to continue into 2023, but the results remain difficult to see due to limited public visibility. Unlike other large cities with similar programs, such as Boston, New York City lacks a public dashboard where residents can find real-time updates of the coronavirus spread in their communities. New York City’s data does appear on individual web feeds run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and New York state, but the data is shared with a delay and is often weeks old.

“If it weren’t for a pandemic, this program could’ve taken five to 10 years to set up,” said Pamela Elardo, the former deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection and past leader of the COVID-19 wastewater testing initiative. According to interviews and documents, the department scrambled to start monitoring sewers for COVID-19 in spring 2020, successfully establishing a process for testing samples by the end of the summer.

Separately, the city's health department has provided few details on how wastewater data factors into COVID-19 decision-making. In statements this year, Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan has described wastewater surveillance as another mode of keeping tabs on the pandemic as fewer and fewer people visit clinics for official testing.

When asked how the city is currently using this surveillance to inform policies, however, the departments of health and environmental protection said that they still consider wastewater-based epidemiology a “developing field.” The agencies said they are working on best practices for interpreting the data – even as this program approaches its fourth year of sampling the city’s sewers, according to a joint statement provided by health department spokesperson Patrick Gallahue.

This data is “becoming the first line to figure out what’s going on in a community” as fewer people get swabbed for COVID-19, said Amy Kirby, program leader of the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System. Such information is particularly important during the holiday season and heading into 2023, she said.

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