A Secret Weapon in the Fight Against COVID-19

摘要

The University of Arizona may have stopped a potential coronavirus outbreak earlier this year by testing dormitory wastewater for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Just days after students returned for the start of the fall semester, sewage testing showed the presence of the virus' RNA in raw wastewater samples from a particular dorm. The university tested all residents of the dorm and found two people who were asymptomatic but positive for the virus. Those students - who had tested negative prior to move-in - were then quarantined to stop others from becoming infected. "We identified the [presence of] coronavirus in the sewer line coming out of one of the dormitories, and we estimated by the flow from that sewer line that there were somewhere between two and five people infected out of about 327," Charles Gerba, professor of environmental microbiology with the University of Arizona, said.