Colleges Are Testing Dorm Sewage To Detect Early COVID-19 Outbreaks
Tyler
Durden Mon, 08/31/2020 – 23:25
Colleges and universities which are opening for in-person, on
campus classes this week and the next are apparently stopping at
nothing to ensure they can detect COVID-19 cases early, especially
as they struggle to prevent total campus shutdowns as happened last
March when the pandemic hit the US, also as in many cases the very
financial survival of a number of institutions of higher learning
is at stake.
Already stringent virus testing measures are in effect for new
and returning students, but some schools are going to more extreme
lengths. Testing students’ shit – literally -is now a
thing, apparently.
“The University of Arizona found early signs of COVID-19
in a student dorm this week by testing wastewater and were able to
head off an outbreak there, school leaders announced
Thursday,” the daily newspaper Arizona
Republic reports.
Sewage testing, via Getty
Images
“Researchers at the school have looked for traces of the virus
in wastewater samples taken from the greater Tucson area since
March and have gathered samples from 20 buildings on the
UA campus since school started,” the report states.
The campus has some 5,000 students currently moving into their
on-campus dorms and housing. At least one of the dorms’ sewage
water came back positive for traces of COVID-19.
“Earlier this week, data collected from the dorms found higher
viral loads in wastewater samples taken from Likins Hall,” AZ
Republic writes further. This led the school to test all newly
arrived 311 students in that dorm, resulting in discovery of two
COVID-19 positive cases.
University of Arizona Likins Hall,
via Martin White Griffis
The positive students were said to be asymptomatic, which
suggests they could have spread the disease far and wide before any
detection, if not for the new sewage monitoring.
Meanwhile a report in The
Washington Post notes that other schools like University of
California are doing the same.
This also as there are nationwide efforts underway to put some
kind of wastewater COVID-19 detection tracking system in place, as
the virus is believed to appear in feces often prior to the onset
of symptoms like fever, coughs, and headaches.
