Get all the important epidemic education news on Education N.J., A specialized resource guide created for parents, students and teachers. When schools reopen in NJ, we want to know what works and what doesn’t. Tell us about it Here.
Three hundred students were quarantined at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark when a high-level COVID-19 was found in a gutter, officials said.
NJIT’s Chief Strategy Officer Fisher Matthew Golden told NJ Advance Media that every student in the Cyprus hall was segregated on Wednesday night after the results of the exam were announced in the evening.
Students can leave campus, but the university will suspend their swipe admission to facilities until they pass a negative test, Golden said.
They were all doing virtual learning when they were under quarantine and all were tested for COVID-19 on Thursday morning with the expectation of results by Monday, he said.
No student reported any symptoms of the virus.
The school tests 400 students randomly each week for COVID-19, and only three people tested positive before a sewer-positive sample, Golden said.
He added that the waste retention test would be one of the university’s “best tools” to catch the virus early.
He said it could be used as an “early warning system” for asymptomatic people, as the virus appears in their urine or feces, ending up in wastewater.
The university specializes in water testing on campus, including Professor Lucia Rodriguez-Freer.
He is a N.J. Spotlight News said it suggested a sewer test for COVID-19 and said it was happening at several universities in other states, as well as the Netherlands, Finland and Spain.
“The good thing about it is, we don’t have to check on individuals,” Rodriguez-Frere told the news outlet, “We can check the whole community, and see if something is going on.”
Golden said he believes NJIT is the only university in New Jersey that tests wastewater.
Thank you for trusting us to provide journalism that you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com With a voluntary subscription.
Chris Sheldon can reach [email protected].
