Dataset Information

Wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 on college campuses: Initial efforts, lessons learned and research needs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 is an emerging approach to help identify the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak. This tool can contribute to public health surveillance at both community (wastewater treatment system) and institutional (e.g., colleges, prisons, nursing homes) scales.

Objectives

This research aims to understand the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from initial wastewater surveillance efforts at colleges and university systems to inform future research, development and implementation.

Methods

This paper presents the experiences of 25 college and university systems in the United States that monitored campus wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 during the fall 2020 academic period. We describe the broad range of approaches, findings, resource needs, and lessons learned from these initial efforts. These institutions range in size, social and political geographies, and include both public and private institutions.

Discussion

Our analysis suggests that wastewater monitoring at colleges requires consideration of information needs, local sewage infrastructure, resources for sampling and analysis, college and community dynamics, approaches to interpretation and communication of results, and follow-up actions. Most colleges reported that a learning process of experimentation, evaluation, and adaptation was key to progress. This process requires ongoing collaboration among diverse stakeholders including decision-makers, researchers, faculty, facilities staff, students, and community members.

SUBMITTER: Harris-Lovett S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7872386 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:As college campuses reopened in fall 2020, we saw a large-scale experiment unfold on the efficacy of various strategies to contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Traditional individual surveillance testing via nasal swabs and/or saliva is among the measures that colleges are pursuing to reduce the spread of the virus on campus. Additionally, some colleges are testing wastewater on their campuses for signs of infection, which can provide an early warning signal for campuses to locate COVID-positive individuals. However, a representation of wastewater surveillance has not yet been incorporated into epidemiological models for college campuses, nor has the efficacy of wastewater screening been evaluated relative to traditional individual surveillance testing, within the structure of these models. Here, we implement a new model component for wastewater surveillance within an established epidemiological model for college campuses. We use a hypothetical residential university to evaluate the efficacy of wastewater surveillance for maintaining low infection rates. We find that wastewater sampling with a 1-day lag to initiate individual screening tests, plus completing the subsequent tests within a 4-day period can keep overall infections within 5% of the infection rates seen with traditional individual surveillance testing. Our results also indicate that wastewater surveillance can effectively reduce the number of false positive cases by identifying subpopulations for surveillance testing where infectious individuals are more likely to be found. Through a Monte Carlo risk analysis, we find that surveillance testing that relies solely on wastewater sampling can be fragile against scenarios with high viral reproductive numbers and high rates of infection of campus community members by outside sources. These results point to the practical importance of additional surveillance measures to limit the spread of the virus on campus and the necessity of a proactive response to the initial signs of outbreak.