They estimate the person is shedding ~2e12 genomes daily [1]. If this person were in Boston, one of ~3M people shedding into Deer Island sewershed, then their

They estimate the person is shedding ~2e12 genomes daily [1]. If this person were in Boston, one of ~3M people shedding into Deer Island sewershed, then their stool would be diluted with an average of 4e8 gal/d [2] from other people. This would give an average of 5e3 (2e12/4e8) copies from this person in every gallon of sewage going through the plant, or ~2 copies per mL of sewage. That's about 1% of what biobot finds in a typical mL of sewage these days. [3] Which is good news, really. Before I did the calculation I was worried that a single highly-infected person might be enough to skew the numbers all by themselves even in a large city. On the other hand, in a sewershed of 15k instead of 3M, this person's contribution would be enough to 4x the measured concentration. [1] https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444608921223169 https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1665444608921223169 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Island_Waste_Water_Treatment_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Island_Waste_Water_Treatm... [3] https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm