JACKSON, Ohio — In Jackson, it’s not exactly easy to get a small town of around 6,400 people people to believe the coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate. So, the city is using scientific data from the wastewater treatment plant to prove that the coronavirus is not a hoax.

What You Need To Know

  • Jackson officials have noticed a spike in viral-load samples from the city’s wastewater

  • The samples contain dead traces of novel coronavirus

  • Officials said the sample amount increased tenfold

  • The mayor is stressing that residents follow CDC guidelines to slow the spread

Randy Evans is serving in his first year as mayor of Jackson.  

He said it’s been a challenge managing to provide services to the city during an uncertain time, and also just as tough delivering effective messaging to the public — especially regarding the pandemic. 

“Recently in Jackson, just like all over the country, the community spread has been on the rise,” Evans said. “And we know that. Not everyone believes that, but statistics show that.” 
 
The statistics Evans is referring to are coming from a place that most wouldn’t consider to be a source of coronavirus data — the City of Jackson Wastewater Treatment Plant. 
 
“What we are looking at is the virus fragments that are being shed by a human through their feces,” Joan Waugh, City of Jackson Wastewater department head said. 
 
You heard that correctly. Poop is one way to gauge and monitor the spread of the coronavirus in a given area through sampling — a study being conducted by The Ohio State University, the EPA, and the Ohio Water Resources Center across the Buckeye state. 
 
She said over the past week, Jackson’s samples have spiked. 

“We actually saw a ten-fold increase in the amount of the dead gene fragments that we were sampling for,” Waugh said. 

On Oct. 21, the million gene copies per day (MCG) was 3,500 — on November 8 it was 100,000 MGC per day.
 
The spike in the wastewater sample prompted the mayor to post on Facebook, sounding the alarm about the spread of the virus in Jackson.

While that was received well, he said they still have to do more to communicate to the public about this ongoing health issue — including the importance of wearing a mask and social distancing during this crucial time. 
 
“The goal is to make them aware to be more vigilant in the common sense things that we know we should be doing, we know we need to do,” Evans said.  
 
Jackson County — which is currently red on the state’s coronavirus health advisory map — has seen 172 cases over the past two weeks and is averaging 530 cases per 100K residents, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
 
Waugh said they will continue to monitor the sampling system to follow the trends. But, she said people who doubt should take a look at the data, because the proof is in the poop. 
 
“There’s no way to say that if anybody thinks COVID isn’t real and it’s not here in the community — it is,” she said. “We’re seeing in our wastewater and the only way it gets there is from the fragments that are shed through a human when they have the virus.”