The University of Arizona discovered early indications of coronavirus in a student hostel by testing the wastewater and regularly screening the sewage from each dorm.
The authorities were successfully able to head off an outbreak there.
According to the media reports, the researchers prevented a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by asymptomatic individuals inside one of its dormitory by conducting a test program on wastewater coming from campus hostel.
“We did test — I think there are 311 individuals in that dorm — and we did the antigen test yesterday and found two positive cases there,” said campus President Robert Robbins to tucson.com.
“We’re running down contact tracing their contacts, and those two individuals have gone to isolation yesterday morning.”
The wastewater testing provides a way to monitor for potential cases, particularly asymptomatic ones, beyond individual tests for the virus, researchers said.
Meanwhile, US deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 180,000 on Thursday after a surge of new cases in June and July, many of them in hotspots like California, Florida, and Texas.
There were some signs of an improving outlook. Last week, deaths fell 17% from the prior week and below an average of 1,000 a day for the first time in weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.
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