Clayton Weingartner
4:53 - 5:32
"This is done with trend tracking. We do this 1 to 2 times a week, and it really— looking at concentrations throughout the week and throughout the months really gives us an idea about disease and community disease trends in your community."
“This is done with trend tracking. We do this 1 to 2 times a week, and it really— looking at concentrations throughout the week and throughout the months really gives us an idea about disease and community disease trends in your community.”
- Speaker
- Clayton Weingartner
- Timestamp
- 4:53 – 5:32
- Community
- Alaska News
- Location
- Kenai
- Captured at
- June 17, 2026
From the transcript
It's also a passive sampling tool, meaning it's independent of healthcare-seeking behavior. Say you are sick with the flu, it's mild, you don't go to the hospital, you know, that's never really logged in the clinical case data. But if you use— if you're on the wastewater system, you will shed into that system, and we will be able to essentially kind of identify that somebody had the flu, but as I mentioned, not on an individual level or anything like that. This is done with trend tracking. We do this 1 to 2 times a week, and it really— looking at concentrations throughout the week and throughout the months really gives us an idea about disease and community disease trends in your community.
Related Coverage
State asks Kenai to join disease early-warning network
The Alaska Department of Health wants Kenai to sign a memorandum of agreement to sample sewage at the city's wastewater treatment plant for measles, bird flu, COVID, and other pathogens. The state would cover all equipment and lab costs.
by Walter AlaskaNews3mo ago2 min read