UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Data from Penn State researchers’ SARS-CoV2 wastewater monitoring program in Centre County is now available online on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) website.
Since the summer of 2020, Penn State researchers have been analyzing wastewater on and near the University Park campus to monitor changes in the amount of SARS-CoV2 virus that is detectable in the wastewater. Wastewater surveillance can serve as an early warning that COVID-19 is spreading in the community, and the data collected by these researchers is a critical component in Penn State’s monitoring and response to the pandemic.
The CDC is sharing data from two collection sites: one at the University Park campus’ water treatment plant and one at the University Area Joint Authority’s water treatment plant, sewersheds 1530 and 1533, respectively, on the CDC Water Surveillance website. Both collection sites capture wastewater prior to any treatment by the facilities.
To view the local data, visit the CDC Water Surveillance website, select the state of Pennsylvania and then select Centre County. The data is also available by clicking on the map of wastewater sites across the country.
For each collection site, the CDC website displays information about how the amount of virus detected in the latest samples compares to the amount of virus detected in previous samples. For instance, at this time, the CDC website indicates that the levels of SARS-CoV2 being detected in current samples from University Park are among the lowest levels detected since May.
The website also displays a line graph indicating how samples have compared over the past four months. Information about how the detected virus levels have changed over the past 15 days and data on the percent of samples that have detectable virus are also available on the CDC website.
The Penn State research team provides data weekly to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which passes it along to the CDC. The data for the two Centre County surveillance sites is updated online weekly. Over time, the Penn State team will be working on uploading the entire two-year data set into the NWSS.
The Penn State wastewater surveillance project is led by Andrew Read, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Entomology, and Tom Richard, professor of agricultural and biological engineering. The project is developed and managed by Matt Jones with technical assistance from Camila Van Oost, and is a collaboration with Shirley Clark, Justin Silverman and Heather Preisendanz.