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:
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.
Regular and on-going monitoring of wastewater can provide an early indication of COVID-19 outbreak in a population, possibly even while occupants are asymptomatic but potentially contagious. In addition, testing can provide trend data indicative of "viral load" over time.
Each collection is of wastewater from the prior 24 hours. Samples are shipped to the lab via overnight express shipping adding another 24 hours. Test results are then available 48 hours from the time the samples are received and will indicate the presence or nonpresence of COVID-19 in a residential area.
We publicly report testing data on an ongoing basis using our Together Safely Dashboard. If a wastewater testing result indicates we should take immediate action, we will notify the community of such a result and the specific actions we intend to take via email at that time.