Byronites think their s--t doesn’t stink, but Covid testing has proved them wrong

Distrust, misinformation and conspiracy merchants have combined to ensure armchair experts on social media seemingly know more about Covid than medical scientists and health professionals.

Cape Byron aerial in Byron bay, Australia. Traces of Covid have been found in the Byron sewerage system.

When you get people telling the media they are stirring up the ‘masses’ by highlighting a public health warning, you know the message has seriously gone out of whack when it comes to Covid.

Distrust, misinformation and conspiracy merchants have combined to ensure armchair experts on social media seemingly know more about Covid than medical scientists and health professionals.

So when that radical body, known as NSW Health, issued a public health alert about Covid-19 fragments detected in the Byron Bay sewerage system, there are some on social media who want to shoot that message down in flames.

The sewage treatment plant serves about 19,000 people in Byron Bay, Wategos, Suffolk Park, Sunrise, and Broken Head.

The Health Department, not us, said finding Covid fragments was of “great concern”.

The Health Department, not us, said residents should be “extra cautious” at this time.

Throughout this pandemic, which has killed 4,150,578 people worldwide, public health officials have used a variety of tools to try and get on top of its spread.

One ingenious idea is to test our poo for traces of the virus.

This then alerts the population and the message goes out to get tested even if you have the mildest of symptoms.

There is nothing alarmist or outrageous about warning people there’s Covid around and they might want to get a test which could potentially save their life and the lives of those around them.

What is alarmist is those that deny Covid is real and attempt to disrupt, disengage, spread misinformation and ridicule people who are trying to stop this virus from spreading.

For the record, I’ve had my frst AstraZeneca jab and if I could fast forward and get the second jab, I would.

I would urge anyone who is eligible, to get vaccinated, and to make a booking ASAP, so we can change the conversation around Covid over the course of 2021-22 and put it into a more respectuful, tolertant and positive perspective.

Originally published as Byronites think their s--t doesn’t stink, but Covid testing has proved them wrong