Wastewater testing by ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, has helped the City of Tempe learn that the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is on the decline in the community. The center’s researchers have been looking at the average traces of the coronavirus in the wastewater over 24-hour periods. Halden says such testing provides a more accurate assessment of the rate of infection in an area than simply counting the people who come to hospitals with COVD-19 symptoms. Now the neighboring cities of Guadalupe and Gilbert will have the center’s researchers conduct analysis of their wastewater to gauge the levels of coronavirus presence among the local populations.

See Also: Breakthrough in efforts by ASU researchers to track COVID-19 through wastewater, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, May 8

Researchers test wastewater to identify Covid-19 hotspots, Water Technology, May 8