CDC data shows levels of COVID-19 in wastewater, not water supply | Fact check

Nate Trela, USA TODAY
·4 min read
1

The claim: COVID-19 has been found in the water supply

A Jan. 4 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shared by commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle purports to break news about COVID-19 and a nationwide problem with drinking water.

“Alarming revelation: soaring viral levels detected in water supply,” reads the all-caps caption on a map of the U.S. in the post.

The Facebook post is an ad for The Wellness Company, which sponsored similar claims published by The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart that were later corrected. Guilfoyle describes the company as a sponsor for her show, which is on Rumble.

The post was shared nearly 50 times in two weeks. An Instagram post making a similar claim was liked more than 30,000 times in two weeks but was taken down after USA TODAY contacted the user.

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Our rating: False

The data cited in the posts comes from wastewater sampling, which says nothing about what is in the water supply. Researchers measured levels of the virus that causes COVID-19 in untreated sewage as a way of detecting the virus’s presence in a community.

Data shows virus in sewage, not in water supply

The term “water supply” is commonly used in reference to potable water for activities like drinking, cooking and bathing. It's water supplied to people. But wastewater sampling examines water after human use.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its partners test wastewater, they are looking at levels of viruses and bacteria in untreated sewage to spot changes in infection levels in a community, according to the agency. The data is used to alert health departments to prevent further spread of the virus.

The Dec. 6, 2023, data release from the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System cited in the Facebook map did show increasing levels of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and the Jan. 18 update describes levels as “very high.”

Despite the headline, the key to the map in the Facebook post correctly states that it depicts the virus detected in wastewater, not the water supply.

Treated wastewater is not always returned to the water supply, but the Environmental Protection Agency said conventional treatment methods should kill SARS-CoV-2. Even without treatment, there is no reason to think the virus can spread to people from untreated sewage, the EPA says.

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The CDC says drinking water, whether it comes from recycled water or another source, typically goes through a four-step process to separate contaminants, filter out waste and disinfect before it is sent to consumers.

Guilfoyle's post included an ad for the company's medical emergency kits. "There's never been a more important time to stockpile lifesaving medications like ivermectin, amoxicillin and Z-pak," the ad reads.

Claims about ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment have circulated on social media for years, despite a lack of evidence of any benefit. The FDA has not authorized or approved the drug for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in people.

Guilfoyle did not respond to a request for comment about her post, which bore similarities to other sponsored content from The Wellness Company. The same map and much of the text in the images on her post also appeared in sponsored posts from The Wellness Company on the websites of the Gateway Pundit and Breitbart.

An archived copy of the Gateway Pundit post shows it initially made the same claim about COVID-19 being the water supply in its headline before being corrected. PolitiFact reported that similar sponsored content from The Wellness Company was posted by Breitbart before being taken down and replaced with corrected headlines and captions.

Steve Ram, a podcaster whose Instagram video making the same claim was liked more than 30,000 times before being taken down, said he based his inaccurate video in part on the uncorrected sponsored content on Breitbart.

In an email to USA TODAY, The Wellness Company CEO Peter Gillooly did not say if his company had the posts changed to remove references to COVID-19 being in the water supply or if the websites decided to change them independently.

Lead Stories also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Data shows COVID-19 in sewage, not drinking water | Fact check