Syracuse Sun

State University of New York Upstate Medical University issued the following announcement on Aug. 14.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced a series of new initiatives related to COVID-19 testing that will improve New York state's ability to detect and control the virus in communities across the state.  

The Governor announced the launch of a pilot program to detect the presence of COVID-19 in wastewater, designed to establish an early indicator system to forecast virus spread in communities. $500,000 will support expanding initial wastewater sampling undertaken in Onondaga County and start sample collection in three additional communities, Albany, Newburgh and Buffalo.  

In addition, after New York's contact tracing program identified several new clusters at farms linked to seasonal workers who recently traveled to New York, the Governor announced that the Department of Health and Department of Agriculture & Markets will dispatch mobile testing teams to farms in rural counties across the state, as well as assist with access to isolation housing where needed for workers who test positive. 

The Governor also announced that the State University of New York has been approved by the New York State Department of Health to undertake pooled surveillance testing for COVID-19 - an innovative method where numerous samples can be run as part of one test. SUNY's pooled testing approach was developed and validated by SUNY Upstate Medical University's laboratory, and will use saliva samples, pooled in batches as small as 10 and as large as 25 samples. SUNY Upstate will be able to conduct at least 12,000 more daily tests as a result of this innovative approach.  

"As New Yorkers remain vigilant in stopping the spread and our communities cautiously reopen, we continue to aggressively focus on testing in order to detect and control any new coronavirus outbreaks," Governor Cuomo said. "These new testing initiatives, analyzing wastewater for COVID, deploying mobile testing teams to address clusters at farms, and investing in new capacity using pooled testing, will be a critical part of our state's efforts to test, trace and isolate - and defeat the virus." 

Original source can be found here.