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A New Kind of College Exam: UCSD is Testing Sewage for COVID-19

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diego by Randy Dotinga

Turds tell tales, and UC San Diego is listening.

As the beginning of the school year nears, the university is preparing to ramp up its testing of sewage for the coronavirus. The goal: Monitor the progress of the pandemic on campus and catch outbreaks before it’s too late to control them. Along those lines, UCSD on Saturday sent out its first campus-wide email alert about the detection of the virus in sewage from one of its seven colleges.

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Poop Tests in Sewage Might Predict Coronavirus Surge

/in , , /by /The Orange County Registerby Martin Wisckol

Scientists across the nation are examining Southern California’s poop — maybe even yours — with the hope of more quickly identifying COVID-19 hotspots and better preparing for future surges. The information could also signal when stay-at-home orders can be safely eased in specific communities.

Untreated sewage has been used for years to track viruses as well as to analyze opioid use by neighborhood. Now the race is on to determine whether it can serve as an early warning system for the new coronavirus, particularly since the small fraction of the population receiving swab tests cannot capture the breadth of asymptomatic infections.

“Testing of every individual is very difficult. But if you have 50,000 people in a community, you may be able to determine the prevalence by testing the wastewater,” said Sunny Jiang, a microbiologist leading a pilot project at UC Irvine to identify COVID-19 in sewage systems.

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