Wastewater Testing at Albion

Last updated: Friday, December 18, 2020

Throughout the spring semester, Albion College will continue to perform wastewater testing for the COVID-19 virus in many of our larger residence halls including Seaton, Wesley, Mitchell Towers and the fraternities. If positive cases are identified via wastewater testing, we may take a range of actions including immediately quarantining students in these residence halls and doing individual testing to isolate potential cases. 

It is important to note that a single positive reading may not indicate any elevated risk in the community for a number of reasons including but not limited to:

1. The presence of a visitor who may carry the virus and have used the restroom in a particular residence hall. This is one reason why it is important that people outside of your residence hall stay out of your residence hall other than approved college staff or as in the case of the fraternities, dining services staff.
2. The presence of a resident who has previously had the COVID-19 infection and who is still testing positive as an individual. Such people could still be creating a positive reading in the waste stream. For this reason, trend data is most effective in showing increase or decrease from a baseline reading. Therefore, a change over time reading is more important than a single point in time positive.

For these reasons, we will be testing in the residence halls multiple times per week to establish a baseline for each area tested. Over time we may be able to add testing to additional residential areas.