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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....
Our results demonstrate: (1) the utility of SARS-CoV-2 primary sludge monitoring to accurately track outbreaks in a community and (2) primary sludge SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations can be a leading indicator over other commonly used epidemiology approaches including summarized COVID-19 test results and hospital admissions.
Preprint available in medRxiv (May 22, 2020):
