LSU is using wastewater samples to track the spread of coronavirus on campus. COVID patients shed the virus in their fecal matter and testing wastewater from various points in a sewer system can see how many cases exist. Environmental Engineering Professor Dr. John Pardue says testing can be encouraged quickly upon detection at a certain location.
“We’ve designed a system with about 23 or 24 sampling points and we are racing to get all that moving this week and we’ll have our first formal samples next week,” said Pardue.
The science, known as sewer epidemiology, has been used in the Baton Rouge area for COVID tracking since June.
Pardue says not only does the screening show whether people on a system are COVID positive, but it can measure the viral load and give an estimate of how many people may have the virus.
“Because we know kind of the amount that people excrete while they have the disease by measuring the concentration and knowing how many people are living in the building, we can make an estimate,” said Pardue.
Pardue says sewer epidemiology, when compared to testing, can give an earlier idea of COVID positivity in a community.
“The numbers of Baton Rouge sewage dropped precipitously after the mask mandate and we knew that really the week before the state knew it because the testing has that delay built-in,” said Pardue.
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