Wastewater surveillance is a tool used to detect traces of the coronavirus in sewage. Oregon State University has implemented wastewater testing into their COVID-19 response; the University of Oregon has not.
Wastewater testing — also known as wastewater sampling or surveillance — can detect viral markers in sewage and also measure changes in the prevalence of these markers, Steve Clark, OSU’s vice president for university relations and marketing, said.
At OSU, “sewer surveillance has been helpful in locating populations of students who need additional testing,” Clark said in an email. “With additional testing, we can provide those who test positive with care sooner than otherwise may have occurred.”
This type of COVID-19 surveillance alone does not identify infected individuals or tell the exact number of cases from one source, Clark said, “but it can help identify geographic areas of potential concern and monitor trends of the viral loads in these buildings, campuses and communities.”
OSU places wastewater collection devices outside of buildings like student housing and collects samples from a few days, Clark said. If wastewater shows a high prevalence of viral markers, OSU responds with rapid response screening of student populations living in residence halls or apartment complexes.
OSU’s TRACE-COVID-19 public health project launched Sept. 28, according to the project’s website. Clark said TRACE-OSU involves weekly prevalence testing of as many as 1,000 students, faculty and staff at its campus in Corvallis and hundreds more at the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend and at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
Those being tested are selected from a pool of OSU members who voluntarily registered to participate, according to an article from the OSU newsroom.
TRACE-OSU and TRACE-Community — the school’s community-wide testing efforts in Corvallis, Bend and Newport — both include wastewater surveillance. Wastewater testing is an integral part of OSU’s TRACE efforts, Clark said.
Sewage surveillance prevents further “testing or sampling fatigue” from university communities, among other benefits, he said.
“There is always 100% participation. If you flush, you participate,” Clark said. “Wastewater sewer surveillance costs a fraction of other monitoring techniques and is maximized when it complements other COVID-19 monitoring techniques.”
UO is not currently considering wastewater testing, university spokesperson Saul Hubbard said.
“There are some inherent challenges with that method of testing, including difficult access for effective sampling in many of the UO’s older buildings,” Hubbard said in an email, “and poor ability to identify the individual or individuals tied to a positive wastewater test in buildings that many people are using or visiting.”
Because of these challenges, Hubbard said, UO decided to commit its available resources to testing people themselves with its COVID-19 Monitoring and Assessment Program.
Clark said OSU did not experience issues related to the age of buildings on campus. However, it was difficult to initially locate sewer lines outside of buildings, he said.
MAP initially conducted two rounds of testing on students living in UO’s residence halls, Hubbard said, and has expanded its capacity to between 3,000 and 4,000 tests per week. Hubbard said MAP will offer voluntary testing for some groups of employees and students.
This week, UO’s testing schedule includes target groups like fraternities and sororities, underserved groups and employees working on campus, Hubbard said. Starting in November, UO plans to expand testing to other groups of UO staff and students and eventually the community, he said.
UO is providing COVID-19 testing Monday through Thursday to students who live in the residence halls, with at least one student in each room tested weekly, according to its COVID-19 cases webpage.
“We encourage the campus community to participate in widespread testing through our voluntary COVID-19 testing for students and employees, offered four days a week,” the site stated.
Addy Alfred, secretary of Student Health Advocacy for the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, said she thinks UO should be testing campus wastewater.
Announcing results from wastewater testing might help dissuade students from attending or hosting group gatherings, Alfred said, and it might also be useful in the university’s contact tracing efforts.
“I’m actually surprised that we haven’t been doing that,” she said.