No COVID-19 in Yellowstone Staff; Old Faithful Shows Slight Traces

Old Faithful has a little bit of coronavirus.

Yellowstone continues its thorough COVID-19 testing regimes for park staff and popular tourist spots. There have been 1,500 employee (asymptomatic) surveillance tests of the park’s staff since early June, with no positive results and nearly all of them negative. The others have results pending. Two employees of Yellowstone concessionaries who tested positive for COVID-19 last month have since recovered. No visitors in the park have tested positive in the last 4 weeks, showing how Yellowstone has remained almost entirely free of the virus.

But that’s not the whole story. Wastewater testing continues at several of the park’s more populated areas – Mammoth Hot Springs and Old Faithful – and in several adjacent counties in Wyoming and Montana. The Wyoming Department of Health is conducting the analysis. Recent samples taken from the Mammoth Hot Springs wastewater system indicated non-detectable levels of COVID-19. Samples taken from the Old Faithful system indicated near non-detectable levels. This is nothing to worry about and not entirely surprising. Just because no visitors have tested positive recently in the park doesn’t mean symptomatic or asymptomatic people haven’t been visiting.

What if definitely doesn’t mean is that there’s COVID-19 in Old Faithful itself. Its too hot for that.