BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) —In the pandemic, one of the biggest concerns now is COVID-19 variants.
“From what the City of Boise is reporting we have not seen any variants reported in the wastewater currently on their dashboard. They did report the UK variant before we identified it in the first individual, but we haven’t seen it reported in the wastewater data currently.”
Alina Gilmore is a public information officer at Central District Health. She says the City of Boise is committed when it comes to updating new coronavirus information on its dashboard.
“They usually update that dashboard it could be once or twice a week, sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less, it just depends on how much information they get," Gilmore said.
Gilmore says even though the City of Boise and Central District Health not seen or heard of the UK variant or other variants being reported in our wastewater dashboard currently, doesn't mean we won't see it again in the future.
“It’s should also be noted that test results below a certain point are really hard to detect in wastewater," Gilmore said.
CBS2 asked the CDH would there be a potential spike in cases in the future because the city did detect a new COVID variant? Gilmore responded that there could be a potential spike in cases.
Another concern for Central District Health is the increase in wastewater test results.
“The wastewater dashboard test results did see a doubling in test results seen on Feb. 2," she said. "As of Thursday, March 4 they reported 65.000 to 130,000, so those test results doubled and with that we are starting to see our case counts increase.”
Gilmore says right now it's too early to tell if this is due to the public health order that was lifted three weeks ago or the new variants.
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