Environmental Detection and Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 for COVID-19 Risk Prediction

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that the SARS-CoV-2 was shed in the stool of patients suffering from the disease. Not so clear was the ability for the transmission of the RNA virus via aerosols. After demonstrating the capability to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, investigators in countries around the world quickly began an analysis of wastewater in their communities, building on past experiences, notably that of illicit drug and alcohol use, presence of toxic chemicals, and poliovirus detection, the latter proving useful during global poliomyelitis outbreaks decades previously. Successful detection and monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in municipal and community sewage collection systems and linkage to COVID-19 case incidence resulted in wastewater surveillance becoming accepted as a potential public health tool, referred to as wastewater-based epidemiology. In concordance with the aerosol transmission of the virus established, monitoring environmental parameters correlated with COVID-19 incidence and allowed the development of an early warning, predictive capacity. By adapting satellite sensing and computational modeling to COVID-19, an approach developed originally for cholera risk prediction, a COVID-19 risk prediction system, operative at the county level in the United States, was successfully developed.