Catching a resurgence: Increase in SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA identified in wastewater 48 hours before COVID-19 clinical tests and 96 hours before hospitalizations

D’Aoust, Patrick M.; Graber, Tyson E.; Mercier, Élisabeth; Montpetit, Danika; Alexandrov, Ilya; Neault, Nafisa; Baig, Aiman Tariq; Mayne, Janice; Zhang, Xu; Alain, Tommy; Servos, Mark R.; Srikanthan, Nivetha; MacKenzie, Malcolm R.; Figeys, Daniel; Dujovny, Manuel; Jüni, Peter; MacKenzie, Alex; Delatolla, Robert

doi:10.1101/2020.11.22.20236554

Cited by 16 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…6 ). The amount of intra-laboratory precision attained for PMMoV provides confidence and has been suggested to be useful to normalize SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration estimates for the detection of temporal trends (e.g., D’Aoust et al., 2021 ). However, the use of a consistent method and laboratory for each system/community is again underscored and recommended to prevent avoidable methodological biases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of approaches to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater using RT-qPCR: Results and implications from a collaborative inter-laboratory study in Canada

Chik

Glier

Servos

et al. 2021

Journal of Environmental Sciences

Self Cite

100

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Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater is a promising tool for informing public health decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, approaches for its analysis by use of reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) are still far from standardized globally. To characterize inter- and intra-laboratory variability among results when using various methods deployed across Canada, aliquots from a real wastewater sample were spiked with surrogates of SARS-CoV-2 (gamma-radiation inactivated SARS-CoV-2 and human coronavirus strain 229E [HCoV-229E]) at low and high levels then provided “blind” to eight laboratories. Concentration estimates reported by individual laboratories were consistently within a 1.0-log 10 range for aliquots of the same spiked condition. All laboratories distinguished between low- and high-spikes for both surrogates. As expected, greater variability was observed in the results amongst laboratories than within individual laboratories, but SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration estimates for each spiked condition remained mostly within 1.0-log 10 ranges. The no-spike wastewater aliquots provided yielded non-detects or trace levels (<20 gene copies/mL) of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Detections appear linked to methods that included or focused on the solids fraction of the wastewater matrix and might represent in-situ SARS-CoV-2 to the wastewater sample. HCoV-229E RNA was not detected in the no-spike aliquots. Overall, all methods yielded comparable results at the conditions tested. Partitioning behavior of SARS-CoV-2 and spiked surrogates in wastewater should be considered to evaluate method effectiveness. A consistent method and laboratory to explore wastewater SARS-CoV-2 temporal trends for a given system, with appropriate quality control protocols and documented in adequate detail should succeed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of approaches to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater using RT-qPCR: Results and implications from a collaborative inter-laboratory study in Canada

Chik

Glier

Servos

et al. 2021

Journal of Environmental Sciences

Self Cite

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…WWTP influent is assumed to be a well-mixed sample of contributions from the human population and previous studies in our laboratory [32,33] have demonstrated that human fecal markers are at steady-state levels in WWTP influent, but for these markers, nearly every human in the service area is contributing. In the case of SARS-CoV-2 infections, only a small number per 100,000 people are contributing SARS-CoV-2 based on clinically diagnosed cases, albeit these data likely underestimate prevalence [34]. We note that our analysis of consecutive days examined primarily large sewersheds servicing more than 50,000 people.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of sampling frequency and normalization of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations for capturing COVID-19 burdens in the community

Feng

Roguet

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 provides an approach for assessing the infection burden across a city. For these data to be useful for public health, measurement variability and the relationship to case data need to be established. We measured SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in the influent of twelve wastewater treatment plants from August 2020 to January 2021. Replicate samples demonstrated that N1 gene target concentrations varied by 21% RSD between technical replicate filters and by 14% RSD between duplicate assays. COVID-19 cases were correlated significantly (rho≥0.70) to wastewater SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations for seven plants, including large and small cities. SARS-CoV-2 data normalized to flow improved correlations to reported COVID-19 cases for some plants but normalizing to a spiked recovery control (BCoV) or a fecal marker (PMMoV or HF183) generally reduced correlations. High frequency sampling demonstrated that a minimum of two samples collected per week was needed to maintain accuracy in trend analysis. We found a significantly different ratio of COVID-19 cases to SARS-CoV-2 loads in one of three large communities, suggesting a higher rate of undiagnosed cases. These data demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance can provide a useful community-wide metric to assess the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…The resulting best fit curve had an R 2 value of 0.987, with slope and intercept of −3.203, and 38.987 respectively. Calculated primer efficiency under these conditions was 105.2%, which meets the requirement to be an efficient primer (usually 90-130%)[41].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing Building-Level SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Surveillance on a University Campus

Gibas

Lambirth

Mittal

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of ongoing challenges and presents an increased risk of illness in group environments, including jails, long term care facilities, schools, and, of course, residential college campuses. Early reports that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was detectable in wastewater in advance of confirmed cases sparked widespread interest in wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) as a tool for mitigation of COVID-19 outbreaks. One hypothesis was that wastewater surveillance might provide a cost-effective alternative to other more expensive approaches such as pooled and random testing of groups. In this paper, we report the outcomes of a wastewater surveillance pilot program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a large urban university with a substantial population of students living in on-campus dormitories. Surveillance was conducted at the building level on a thrice-weekly schedule throughout the university’s fall residential semester. In multiple cases, wastewater surveillance enabled identification of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases that were not detected by other components of the campus monitoring program, which also included in-house contact tracing, symptomatic testing, scheduled testing of student athletes, and daily symptom reporting. In the context of all cluster events reported to the University community during the fall semester, wastewater-based testing events resulted in identification of smaller clusters than were reported in other types of cluster events. Wastewater surveillance was able to detect single asymptomatic individuals in dorms with total resident populations of 150-200. While the strategy described was developed for COVID-19, it is likely to be applicable to mitigation of future pandemics in universities and other group-living environments.

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Catching a resurgence: Increase in SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA identified in wastewater 48 hours before COVID-19 clinical tests and 96 hours before hospitalizations

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

Comparison of approaches to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater using RT-qPCR: Results and implications from a collaborative inter-laboratory study in Canada

Comparison of approaches to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater using RT-qPCR: Results and implications from a collaborative inter-laboratory study in Canada

Evaluation of sampling frequency and normalization of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations for capturing COVID-19 burdens in the community

Implementing Building-Level SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Surveillance on a University Campus

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