The case for continuing municipal wastewater surveillance beyond COVID-19

Makes a whole lot of sense! You have to wonder why was such systematic monitoring of municipal wastewater not started many years earlier?

"... During the pandemic, hundreds of communities in the U.S. started monitoring their wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 to gauge the virus’s community spread. ...
the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), which was spearheaded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic, in partnership with other federal agencies and states. ...
Biobot, a wastewater analysis company that manages roughly 30 percent of reporting sites across the country. As of last October, more than 1,250 testing sites in the U.S. contributed data to the NWSS. ..."

The case for continuing wastewater surveillance beyond COVID-19 Wastewater surveillance was a key tool in the fight against COVID-19. As pandemic control measures wane, does it have a future?

Scientists develop tools for early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater | Scripps Research

Good news! Don't we all like sewage and wastewater! It can tell so much about us! 😄

"Now, scientists ... reported that with just two teaspoons [???] of raw sewage, they can accurately determine the genetic mixture of SARS-CoV-2 variants present within a population and identify new variants of concern up to 14 days before traditional clinical testing. In San Diego wastewater, the group detected the Omicron variant 11 days before it was first reported clinically. ..."

From the abstract:

"... SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in wastewater successfully tracks regional infection dynamics and provides less biased abundance estimates than clinical testing. Tracking virus genomic sequences in wastewater would improve community prevalence estimates and detect emerging variants. However, two factors limit wastewater-based genomic surveillance: low-quality sequence data and inability to estimate relative lineage abundance in mixed samples. Here, we resolve these critical issues to perform a high-resolution, 295-day wastewater and clinical sequencing effort, in the controlled environment of a large university campus and the broader context of the surrounding county. We develop and deploy improved virus concentration protocols and deconvolution software that fully resolve multiple virus strains from wastewater. We detect emerging variants of concern up to 14 days earlier in wastewater samples, and identify multiple instances of virus spread not captured by clinical genomic surveillance. Our study provides a scalable solution for wastewater genomic surveillance that allows early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants and identification of cryptic transmission."

Scientists develop tools for early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater | Scripps Research New tools developed at Scripps Research and UC San Diego are helping public health officials around the world get vital information about pathogen variants from wastewater.

Wastewater sequencing reveals early cryptic SARS-CoV-2 variant transmission (probably no public access, but preprint is available)

How sewage could reveal true scale of coronavirus outbreak

Updated: 5/16/2020

We ought to apply sewage testing also to the common cold and influenza!

One more article about about this subject:

Countries Begin Large-Scale Screening for SARS-CoV-2 in Sewage

Researchers have found traces of the coronavirus at wastewater treatment plants in various locations around the world.

"In recent months, various researchers in several countries including the US, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, and France have all reported the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, ... " Plus Israel.

Sounds promising! Hopefully, this would allow to estimate the total number of infected people by not having to test every individual.

" ... Analysing wastewater — used water that goes through the drainage system to a treatment facility — is one way that researchers can track infectious diseases that are excreted in urine or faeces, such as SARS-CoV-2. ... One treatment plant can capture wastewater from more than one million people .... Some efforts to monitor the virus have been stalled by university and laboratory shut-downs and the limited availability of reagents to conduct tests ... detected traces of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater at Schiphol Airport in Tilburg only four days after the Netherlands confirmed its first case of COVID-19 using clinical testing. ... Tracking viral particles in wastewater could give public-health officials a head start on deciding whether to introduce measures such as lockdowns, ... Earlier identification of the virus’s arrival in a community might limit the health and economic damage caused by COVID-19"

How sewage could reveal true scale of coronavirus outbreak: Wastewater testing could also be used as an early-warning sign if the virus returns.