This repository contains data that supports findings and visualizations in the article Wastewater can predict COVID-19 surges, but New York City’s data remains hard to find published by WNYC/Gothamist and MuckRock on December 15, 2022.
In 2022, fewer New Yorkers sought out PCR testing for COVID-19 as at-home tests became more widely available and many city testing sites closed. Official case data – which relies on these swabs – is now a significant undercount of true infections in the city. We used official case data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and chose to visualize a seven-day rolling average of cases to highlight trends.
Since August 2020, the Department of Environmental Protection has sampled New York City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants twice a week to test for the coronavirus in the sewage. As this testing includes all New Yorkers – not just those who seek out PCR testing – experts consider it a more accurate reflection of disease spread, especially as testing became less popular in 2022. Wastewater data in our analysis come from the city's open data portal and are standardized by population of the 14 plants to provide a city-wide trend.
The geolocations for New York City wastewater plants were gathered by Betsy Ladyzhets using Google Maps and a list of watewaster treatment plants from the state of New York.
Contact Dillon Bergin at dillon@muckrock.com or Betsy Ladyzhets at betsy@muckrock.com