COVID-19 virus found in wastewater of UNC Charlotte dorm, school officials say
UNC Charlotte found the virus that causes COVID-19 in the wastewater from a residence hall, university officials said in a campus alert Friday morning.
Officials cited the privacy of residents in refusing to identify the dorm in which the virus was detected during what the college said was routine sampling.
No one living in the dorm has reported COVID-19 symptoms, “and no additional residence halls are affected at this time,” the school said..
All residents and staff of the hall “have received information directly from Housing and Residence Life,” according to the alert. “Per established protocols, all residents are required to remain in the building until they can be tested for COVID-19 on Friday afternoon” and get the results within 24 hours.
“Anyone testing positive or identified as a close contact of anyone who tests positive will be placed in quarantine/isolation in accordance with the University’s on-campus quarantine/isolation protocols,” according to the alert..
UNC Charlotte officials said studies show that wastewater testing can identify the presence of SARS-CoV-2 days before symptoms appear.
Wastewater testing is a “new public health tool to understand COVID-19 spread in a community,” according to the National Wastewater Surveillance System website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Sewage testing has been successfully used as a method for early detection of other diseases, such as polio,” according to the site.
UNC Charlotte reached record enrollment of more than 30,000 students for the fall semester and resumed in-class learning on Thursday for some academic disciplines.
UNC Charlotte has nine active COVID-19 cases, according to its COVID-19 Dashboard. Five are on-campus students, four of whom have been isolated and one quarantined, according to the Dashboard.
This is a developing story.
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 9:57 AM.