an early warning system for pathogens that impact public health
In the quiet infrastructure of public health, Minnesota made a deliberate choice on September 1st, 2023: to listen more carefully, and more permanently, to what flows beneath its cities. By shifting wastewater COVID-19 testing from the University of Minnesota Genomics Center to the UMN Medical School and the state's own Public Health Laboratory, the state signaled that pandemic-era vigilance need not be temporary. What began as an emergency response to one virus is becoming a standing sentinel — a system designed to watch for many threats, long after the crisis that built it has faded from memory.
- COVID-19 never stopped circulating, and Minnesota refused to stop watching — even as the world moved on, the state quietly upgraded its surveillance infrastructure.
- The shift of wastewater testing to new facilities created a consolidation of purpose: two institutions, one state health department, and 37 treatment plants now forming a unified early-warning network.
- Researchers are racing to expand the system beyond COVID-19, adding tests for RSV and both influenza strains before the next respiratory season can catch communities off guard.
- A public-facing weekly dashboard keeps the data accessible, turning sewage science into a tool that any resident can use to gauge what is circulating in their region.
- The infrastructure is landing not as emergency scaffolding but as permanent architecture — wastewater surveillance embedded into Minnesota's public health institutions for the long term.
On September 1st, 2023, Minnesota quietly changed where it sends its wastewater samples. Sewage from St. Paul's Metro Plant, which serves the Twin Cities, would no longer flow to the University of Minnesota Genomics Center for COVID-19 analysis. Instead, it would be tested at the UMN Medical School and the Minnesota Department of Public Health's own laboratory — a consolidation that few would notice, but one that carried real weight.
The move reflected a broader shift in how the state understood its relationship to the virus. COVID-19 had left the headlines, but it had not left the sewers. Wastewater surveillance had proven its value: infected people shed viral traces whether or not they ever seek a test, making sewage a more honest signal than case counts alone. Minnesota was not winding this system down — it was making it permanent.
Health Commissioner Dr. Brooke Cunningham framed the transition as an upgrade, promising better statewide data and a platform capable of monitoring viruses beyond COVID-19. Mark Osborn, the project's study lead at the UMN Medical School, described the state-university partnership as a force multiplier — research capacity meeting regulatory reach across a network of 37 wastewater treatment plants already feeding a public weekly dashboard.
The ambition extended further still. Researchers were already working to add testing for RSV and influenza variants, envisioning a system that could provide early warning before seasonal respiratory viruses overwhelmed hospitals. What Minnesota built in the chaos of a pandemic, it was now choosing to keep — not as emergency infrastructure, but as a permanent way of watching over its people.
On Friday, September 1st, 2023, Minnesota shifted where it listens to the virus. Samples of wastewater flowing through the Metro Plant in St. Paul, which serves the Twin Cities, would no longer be analyzed at the University of Minnesota Genomics Center. Instead, they would move to two new locations: the University of Minnesota Medical School and the Minnesota Department of Public Health's Public Health Laboratory. It was a quiet infrastructure change, the kind that rarely makes headlines, but it signaled something larger—a state rethinking how it watches for disease.
The move came as Minnesota's Department of Health worked to establish what it called long-term management of COVID-19. The virus had stopped dominating the news cycle, but it had not stopped circulating. Wastewater surveillance had proven itself a useful tool: sewage carries traces of viruses shed by infected people, whether they showed symptoms or not. By testing what flows through treatment plants, public health officials could detect outbreaks before they appeared in hospital admissions or case counts. It was epidemiology from below, literally.
Dr. Brooke Cunningham, the state's Commissioner of Health, framed the transition as an upgrade. The new approach, she said, would yield better statewide data for COVID-19 while positioning Minnesota to monitor other viruses in the future. It was not just about one pathogen anymore. The infrastructure being built now could serve as an early warning system for multiple threats—RSV, influenza A, influenza B, and whatever else might emerge.
Mark Osborn, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and the study lead on the project, used the language of force multiplication. The partnership between the state health department and the university would create synergy, he said—a collaboration that could detect pathogens before they spread widely. The two institutions brought different strengths: the university's research capacity and the state lab's regulatory authority and reach.
The scope of the surveillance was already substantial. The University of Minnesota had been monitoring 37 wastewater treatment plants across Minnesota, a network that covered much of the state's population. The data flowed into a weekly online dashboard, available to the public. Anyone could check it, see what was circulating in their region, and adjust their behavior accordingly. The new testing arrangement promised to make that data more reliable and comprehensive.
The transition represented a maturation of pandemic response infrastructure. Early in COVID-19, testing had been chaotic and fragmented. By 2023, Minnesota was consolidating its wastewater surveillance into a more formal, integrated system. The state was not abandoning the work—it was embedding it deeper into public health institutions, making it permanent rather than emergency.
What came next was expansion. Researchers were already working on adding tests for respiratory viruses that circulate seasonally. RSV and influenza had their own patterns, their own seasons, their own capacity to overwhelm healthcare systems. If wastewater surveillance could provide early warning for those viruses too, it would give communities time to prepare—to stock supplies, to alert hospitals, to remind people to take precautions. The infrastructure being built in September 2023 was designed to outlast COVID-19, to become part of how Minnesota watched over its population's health.
Notable Quotes
The new approach will provide better statewide data for COVID-19 as well as future monitoring for other viruses.— Dr. Brooke Cunningham, Minnesota Commissioner of Health
The synergy between MDH and UMN will be a force-multiplying effort that serves as an early warning system for pathogens that impact public health.— Mark Osborn, assistant professor at University of Minnesota Medical School
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why move the testing at all? If it was working at the Genomics Center, what broke?
Nothing broke. But there's a difference between running a research project and running a permanent public health system. The state wanted to anchor this in institutions that would be there for the long term.
So this is about making it official?
Partly. But also about capacity and reach. The state lab and the medical school together can handle more samples, more plants, more data. It's about scaling up what was working.
The dashboard is public. Does that mean people are actually using it to make decisions?
That's the hope. If you can see that RSV is rising in your wastewater, you might mask up before it hits your family. You might tell your elderly neighbor. It's not perfect information, but it's information you didn't have before.
And now they're adding influenza and RSV. That's a lot of viruses to track in sewage.
It is. But once you have the infrastructure, the testing, the lab capacity, adding another pathogen isn't as hard as building the first one. You're building a system that can adapt.
What happens if they find something unexpected in the wastewater? Something new?
That's the real value. You catch it early, before hospitals fill up, before people know they're sick. That's the early warning system they're talking about.