Officials in a Delaware county have begun using an MIT-connected startup to test the city's wastewater for coronavirus in an attempt to get a more accurate count of infections.

Local news affiliate ABC 6 reported that officials in New Castle County are using BioBot, created by an all-female team of scientists at MIT, to look for virus in the county's sewer system. Researchers using the system estimate that the actual number of coronavirus cases in the county could be as high at 15,000, 10 times what has been confirmed by state health officials.

There's no confirmation from state health officials that the researchers' numbers are accurate, but many coronavirus cases present as asymptomatic and therefore result in patients who never seek treatment. The company's previous tests in Los Angeles ended up being corroborated by antibody tests, according to ABC 6.

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"It's both a little scary to realize there's more there than we thought, but also a little hopeful because it may indicate there are a lot more antibodies than we realize," New Castle County executive Matt Meyer told ABC 6.

"You can get tests from different substations. You can then say, 'OK, these are where our top three hotspots are, and we should focus our testing there,'" he added.