There are plenty of mysteries about how coronavirus spread around the world so quickly. But could we shed some light on this by looking in an unusual place? Several studies have been doing just that: tracing the emergence of covid-19 by investigating frozen faeces samples from sewage. This analysis cannot tell us where the virus originated from, nor can it tell us whether the recovered micro-organisms are still infectious. But they can give us ideas about how long we have been living alongside a virus which has so far killed more than half-a-million people.
Coronavirus has been found in sewage from several countries predating the detection of the first confirmed cases in those areas: in Barcelona, in March 2019; Santa Catalina, Brazil in November 2019; and Milan, in February 2020. As more stool samples are assessed there are only likely to be more of these revelations.
So why was coronavirus in sewage before the virus was known to exist in those places? It seems unlikely that the virus spread through sewage, given the existence of modern sanitation systems.
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