wastewater monitoring

[Reid Priedhorsky]

Ms. Guy, members of the board:

I understand that many municipalities have been highly effective in COVID surveillance using wastewater monitoring, e.g. Boston.

Is this feasible for individual schools?

Recall that key questions parents want answered are (a) how much COVID is present in the schools and (b) how much transmission is happening in the schools. Given that LAPS testing is inadequate, for both good and bad reasons, these questions are at present extremely difficult to answer, causing great frustration among myself and other parents.

Testing wastewater would allow viral load of everyone present in the building to be measured without individuals needing to do anything.

This capability would also be highly useful in tracking other infectious diseases that impact children and the community, e.g. flu and RSV.

Thanks,
Reid Priedhorsky
LAPS parent