Something is happening in Anchorage with #COVID19. COVID has exploded an incredible level of 10,450 PMMoV. I'd say this might be an error, but the sewershed has reported 3 consecutive levels with huge increases. If this is true, it suggests 1 in 45 or more is infectious in that city. This would be one of the 5 highest readings ever reported on WastewaterSCAN in any sewershed. It is 12x higher than any other sewershed at present.
After Anchorage at 10,450, the next highest is West Bank NOLA, LA, at 862 PMMoV. And after that, the next highest is Honolulu, HI at 382 PMMoV. Most sewersheds are still below 120 PMMoV. This data really shows how astronomically high COVID is in Anchorage. If you're in Alaska, mask up!
If we remove Anchorage (since it compresses the rest of the chart), you can see that we remain at fairly modest levels in most sewersheds relative to surges last summer and winter.
Aug 16, 2026, 8:28 AM@augieray give the person taking the samples a COVID test 🙂
(Edit: this is moderately facetious, I assume they've got procedures for this but its always best to rule out the obvious first..)
@augieray Data table link please.
@fshinneman WastewaterSCAN doesn't provide a data table (unless you hack the code). But, here is the link for Anchorage's chart:
@augieray
Thank You. Perfect!
Pictures deserve references/links so one can understand the details.
Wondering if major enough to be relevant, but -- Do cruise ships empty their tanks into municipal sewers in Anchorage?
@MBridegam @augieray oooh that’s a really good hypothesis
@suzannealdrich @MBridegam That is an interesting theory! But, if so, then I think we'd expect to see regular waves in summer, and in fact, Anchorage has only seen surges like this in winter previously.
Also, A quick search found most ships labeled as visiting the Anchorage area actually dock at Whittier (60 miles away) or Seward (120 miles away). Only about 7 cruise ships dock directly at the Port of Alaska for the entire May-through-September season. Seems unlikely, but still possible.
@augieray oh God…. wtf???
Not sure how the table of hospital resources below would normally look.
Alaska Regional, Providence and Mat-Su are AIUI in Anchorage.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8edf91ce0e474126a8c6ace0250f952c#
@augieray holy shit sewer shed data is publicly available? Nice!
Shhhh or someone will cancel it because it said bad things.
I completely forgot about https://www.wastewaterscan.org/en.
And I didn't know (remember?) that they test and track lots more than just SARS-CoV-2...
Excellent resource.
@augieray it looks kinda in line with the development starting in September last year though. Maybe a bit earlier but there's a huge spike as well.
Is there any explanation for the last one?
Possible new variety of covid in offing?
More spread means more genetic variations possible
@Npars01 I know of no variant that is threatening to accelerate like this, but it's always possible.
My guess is that this is some combination of low vaccination rates, tourism, and perhaps someone with a chronic infection.
For example, Coeur d'Alene, ID, inexplicably went through the same levels of COVID last year, but that didn't turn into a nationwide wave. (However, Anchorage has ~2x the metro population, so this is stranger.)
@augieray That is high!
@augieray Is there a shitbird event going on? tourism is big here and it's the season and the shitbirds might be flocking because they can act like climate change doesn't exist or whatever, since they hardly ever see the place to know how much it's changed. It's probably also kill things season, though we've never kept up with the dates on that.
