Note on data availability: The MA Department of Public Health has stopped updating the dashboard that supplies the data for this page. The following note is posted on the DPH website:

"Note: DPH is transitioning wastewater testing to an in-house laboratory program. As part of this transition, we are discontinuing the current wastewater dashboard. The 2025-2026 dashboard will remain on the website and raw data will be provided through July 31, 2026. An updated wastewater report and raw data table, reflecting the new testing program and format, will be available by early Fall. We appreciate your patience during this transition."


Source: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/wastewater-surveillance-reporting

I am hopeful that the new data tables will support a regional breakdown such as I've made here.
If you use this page and would like to see it continue, please let me know through this very short survey.

Thank you!

Updates on Thursday evening, as long as new data is uploaded to the state dashboard (link below).

Regional Concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity Level

From 2025-07-24 to 2026-07-22
Current WVA level: Minimal
Current WVA score: 0.3
The above figure shows the regional wastewater COVID concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) for 9 sewer systems in Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data.

The above figure shows the regional wastewater COVID concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) for 9 sewer systems in Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data.


County-level Concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity Level

The above figure shows county-level wastewater COVID concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) for 9 sewer systems in Berkshire County (Pittsfield); Hampden County (Springfield); Hampshire County (Amherst, Northampton), and Franklin County (Greenfield, Montague, S. Deerfield, Sunderland). Concentrations below 1 copies/mL are cropped out to make the figures easier to read. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data. Blue annotations show the date of most recent report and the current WVA level.

The above figure shows county-level wastewater COVID concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) for 9 sewer systems in Berkshire County (Pittsfield); Hampden County (Springfield); Hampshire County (Amherst, Northampton), and Franklin County (Greenfield, Montague, S. Deerfield, Sunderland). Concentrations below 1 copies/mL are cropped out to make the figures easier to read. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data. Blue annotations show the date of most recent report and the current WVA level.

Individual System Concentration and Wastewater Viral Activity Level
The above figure shows reported concentration data and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) from 9 individual sewer systems in Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. Concentrations below 1 copies/mL are cropped out to make the figures easier to read. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data. Blue annotations show the date of most recent report and the current WVA level.

The above figure shows reported concentration data and Wastewater Viral Activity level (WVA) from 9 individual sewer systems in Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. Concentrations below 1 copies/mL are cropped out to make the figures easier to read. WVA levels are relative to the previous 12 months of data. Blue annotations show the date of most recent report and the current WVA level.

Technical Notes
• Wastewater Viral Activity levels are based on the CDC methodology linked below, with two differences:
(1) use of weighted statistics (median and standard deviation) to calculate thresholds, with population served and reporting interval as weights; and
(2) The baseline is updated each time the WVA is calculated, rather than every 6 months.
• The WVA is relative to the previous 12 months of data and is calculated independently for each panel. Because of this, WVA thresholds may be different across panels. The y-axis (copies/mL) is fixed, but the WVA levels are relative.
• The trend line is a smoothed conditional mean, specifically a Locally Estimated Scatterplot Smoother (or LOESS).
• All analysis and visualization is performed in R. Data and scripts are accessible in the github respository here: https://github.com/raughter/western-mass-covid.

Data Sources
• CDC methodology: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/about-data.html#data-method
• Wastewater data access: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/wastewater-surveillance-reporting
• Population weights are from various sources (EPA estimates whenever available).


If you have the means, you can buy me a coffee here https://ko-fi.com/raughter.
You can find my writing here https://cultureofhomecoming.substack.com/
Stay safe, y’all <3