The City of Bloomington is continuing to test wastewater for COVID-19 once a week.
The city started monitoring wastewater for the virus in 2020.
Vic Kelson is the director of utilities for the city and said that in 2020, scientists discovered they could test for COVID-19 in fecal matter.
“So, what will happen is there's evidence that the community is being affected by COVID-19," Kelson said. "Either increasing incidents or decreasing incidents will appear in wastewater before it will appear in the testing records.”
Unlike other types of COVID-19 monitoring, wastewater surveillance doesn’t depend on people getting tested or test availability.
The program started in July 2020 when the city signed a weekly testing contract with 120Water, a company that helps government agencies manage wastewater programs. In late 2020, the Indiana Finance Authority began sponsoring a statewide program.
When that ended, the city decided to continue testing, paying through its own budget. It costs $3,000 a month to do the sampling.
“I think we're two years in but this is still a really new idea, so just simply having the data and the samples on hand is worthwhile,” Kelson said.
This data can be found on the city's website.
No one in the Monroe County Health Department is making decisions based on the COVID-19 waste monitoring system, Kelson said, but it's one piece of data to consider.
If the testing was more frequent, like two or three times a week, Kelson said it could provide early warning of an outbreak.
Kelson said the city is hoping to work in a federal sampling program with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and continues to look for opportunities with other organizations.