J. Peccia, A. Zulli, D. Brackney, N. Grubaugh, E. H. Kaplan, A. Casanovas-Massana, A. Ko, A. Malik, D. Wang, M. Wang, D. Weinberger, S. Omer
medRxiv, 2020
We report a time course of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary sewage sludge during the Spring COVID-19 outbreak in a northeastern U.S. metropolitan area. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in all environmental samples and, when adjusted for the time lag, the virus RNA concentrations were highly correlated with the COVID-19 epidemiological curve (R2=0.99) and local hospital admissions (R2=0.99). SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations were a seven-day leading indicator ahead of compiled COVID-19 testing data and led local hospital admissions data by three days. Decisions to implement or relax public health measures and restrictions require timely information on outbreak dynamics in a community.
Cited by 86 publications.
Field of study: Medicine