About the project
Community COVID signal, made visible
COVID Flow is an open research dashboard that translates wastewater monitoring data into weekly trends anyone can read. We built it for Illinois and Cook County first because sewershed coverage is strong and the public deserves a clear view of community viral activity.
- Population-wide signal
- Illinois & Cook County
- Methods you can audit
The idea
Why wastewater belongs on your radar
When people use the sewer system, they leave behind traces of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Sampling is continuous and population-wide, so the signal can shift before case counts move in some outbreaks. It cannot tell you who is sick or how risky a gathering is for you personally. It can show whether viral shedding in a community is rising, falling, or holding steady.
Why open dashboards matter
Public health data should be readable without a statistics degree. COVID Flow is built for journalists, local officials, researchers, and curious residents who want a straight answer to one question: is viral shedding in my community trending up or down this week?
What we stand for
Early community signal
Wastewater can reflect changes in viral load across everyone connected to a sewershed, not only people who seek tests.
Honest interpretation
We publish methods, quality flags, and limits up front so the index is read as a population trend, not a personal score.
Open, repeatable data
Metrics are rebuilt each week from CDC NWSS open releases through a documented pipeline anyone can inspect.
What you can explore today
- Statewide and Cook County activity indices with week-over-week trends
- An Illinois county map with hover detail for reporting sewersheds
- Historical charts, data quality panels, and sewershed-level tables
- Automated weekly refresh from public NWSS releases
On the horizon
What we are building next
We are developing a Neural ODE modeling layer for short-horizon projections with uncertainty bands. Forecasts will ship only after held-out validation and clear documentation of model limits. National coverage will follow once regional workflows are stable.
In plain terms
This platform is not a medical diagnostic and does not estimate individual infection risk. Wastewater trends describe viral shedding at the sewershed level. Use them alongside hospital and clinic reporting and public health guidance, not instead of them.
Definitions, caveats, and citations live on the methods page.