Featured this Month
October 2020
Even before a community begins to show symptoms of COVID-19, evidence can be detected in what may be an unexpected place: the wastewater stream. So civil engineers, scientists, and health professionals are working together to determine how best to sample and analyze wastewater to assess the presence of the virus and give public health officials early warning when a community is experiencing an increase - or a decline - in cases of the illness. The resulting collaborations are furthering the field of wastewaterbased epidemiology, raising its prospects for detecting other diseases and health threats in the future.