BOSTON (WHDH) - Massachusetts appears to be on the “back side” of the omicron-fueled surge in new COVID-19 cases, Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday, citing recently collected wastewater readings.
“The current state of play of the wastewater treatment data…Is it’s down probably somewhere between 65 and 75 percent of where it was at the peak a couple of weeks ago,” Baker said during a news conference at the State House.
Peak COVID-19 levels in the wastewater were recorded around New Year’s Eve through the first couple days of January as virus cases skyrocketed following the holidays, but there has been a significant drop since then, according to readings from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s plant.
The decline Massachusetts is seeing in COVID-19 levels in wastewater is on “exactly the same trajectory” that the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other parts of the United States saw when the omicron peak started to subside, Baker added.
“Straight up and then straight down,” Baker said of the data. “The one thing I would say of COVID is generally you just never know, but it certainly does look like we are very much on the backside of the omicron surge in Massachusetts.”
Dr. Sabrina Assoumou, of Boston Medical Center, recently called the wastewater data “reassuring and helpful to see.”
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