homehome Home chatchat Notifications


How the University of Arizona detected a campus outbreak before it even happened

They knew coronavirus was spreading before the patients themselves.

Mihai Andrei
August 31, 2020 @ 1:23 pm

share Share

When 5,000 students moved to the University of Arizona campus, there were no signs of an outbreak. Everyone felt fine and no symptoms were reported. But unbeknownst to the students, a couple of them were already infected — and asymptomatic.

Image credits: Ameer Basheer.

University officials warned students that there would be regular coronavirus tests — but it wasn’t only nose swabs that they were referring to. Each dorm has its own sewage, and officials regularly screen sewage water for traces of coronavirus; on Thursday, university officials announced that the technique worked. They picked up traces of the virus coming from one dorm and when they tested the students, they found two asymptomatic students.

It worked like this: first, they detected traces of coronavirus in the sewage water in one dorm. Then, they tested all the 311 individuals in that dorm, and found two that tested positive. The two are now in quarantine, and the potential outbreak was stopped before it even started.

“With this early detection, we jumped on it right away, tested those youngsters, and got them the appropriate isolation where they needed to be,” said Richard Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general who is directing the school’s reentry task force, in a news conference.

Wastewater treatment has been previously discussed as a method to trace outbreaks in their early stages. The advantage is that you can track the virus before any symptoms show up, even in asymptomatic people. The major downside is that you don’t know who and how many people have the virus. The levels of the virus can offer some clues about the extent of the outbreak, but you’ll never really be sure how many people have the virus.

However, if you can follow it up with localized testing, it’s an excellent tool The Director of the University of Arizona West Center, Dr. Ian Pepper, says the method can pick up one single case in sewage from 10,000 people, two to three weeks before the patients would be diagnosed otherwise — and two to three weeks in which the virus could circulate freely within the community.

“Sewage surveillance is a leading indicator as opposed to deaths, that’s a lagging indicator. That’s the last thing you see,” said Dr. Pepper.

“You think about if we had missed it, if we had waited until they became symptomatic and they stayed in that dorm for days, or a week, or the whole incubation period, how many other people would have been infected?” Carmona also said.

The wastewater monitoring approach is extremely useful in small communities like on campus, but there are already wider-scale programs in several countries, including Spain, China, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Netherlands, and the US.

As our battle with the coronavirus pandemic is set to enter a long winter stage, detecting and stopping outbreaks as early as possible is key — and it’s tools like this might help us do that.

share Share

How Hot is the Moon? A New NASA Mission is About to Find Out

Understanding how heat moves through the lunar regolith can help scientists understand how the Moon's interior formed.

This 5,500-year-old Kish tablet is the oldest written document

Beer, goats, and grains: here's what the oldest document reveals.

A Huge, Lazy Black Hole Is Redefining the Early Universe

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a massive, dormant black hole from just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

Did Columbus Bring Syphilis to Europe? Ancient DNA Suggests So

A new study pinpoints the origin of the STD to South America.

The Magnetic North Pole Has Shifted Again. Here’s Why It Matters

The magnetic North pole is now closer to Siberia than it is to Canada, and scientists aren't sure why.

For better or worse, machine learning is shaping biology research

Machine learning tools can increase the pace of biology research and open the door to new research questions, but the benefits don’t come without risks.

This Babylonian Student's 4,000-Year-Old Math Blunder Is Still Relatable Today

More than memorializing a math mistake, stone tablets show just how advanced the Babylonians were in their time.

Sixty Years Ago, We Nearly Wiped Out Bed Bugs. Then, They Started Changing

Driven to the brink of extinction, bed bugs adapted—and now pesticides are almost useless against them.

LG’s $60,000 Transparent TV Is So Luxe It’s Practically Invisible

This TV screen vanishes at the push of a button.

Couple Finds Giant Teeth in Backyard Belonging to 13,000-year-old Mastodon

A New York couple stumble upon an ancient mastodon fossil beneath their lawn.