RAPID: Tracking the Coronovirus in municipal wastewater

正在进行的新冠肺炎大流行已经对人类健康和经济造成了重大影响。最关键的问题之一是确定谁被感染，以帮助了解疫情进展得有多快。由于检测需求和能力之间的持续不匹配，需要替代方法来评估疫情。监测疫情的进一步困难是因为大多数感染者不会立即显示出新冠肺炎症状。这些问题限制了决策者确定其社区内哪里发生疫情、疫情何时开始以及疫情何时减缓或停止的能力。该项目的目标是通过发展通过社区废水监测监测疾病传播背后的科学来解决这些限制。为了实现这一目标，这项研究将测量废水系统中导致新冠肺炎的SARS-CoV2病毒。这种新的检测方法将使决策者能够在有症状的人要求检测之前评估潜在的疫情。此外，结果将有助于确定哪些社区感染了个人。这对于评估新冠肺炎疫情是否随着干预的响应而放缓尤为重要。该项目的目标是通过废水监测确定新冠肺炎疫情的开始、持续时间、终止和地点。这项工作将检验两个假设：1)污水和雨水中SARS-CoV2病毒的浓度与社区总新冠肺炎感染的开始、发展和下降相关；2)下水道系统网络内的空间采样可以隔离给定社区内新冠肺炎热点的位置。为了验证这些假设，将完成两个目标：1)将每周使用逆转录酶液滴数字聚合酶链式反应(RT-ddPCR)对四个清洁水服务公司(CWS，俄勒冈州华盛顿县)废水处理设施和雨水收集系统中的SARS-CoV2 RNA进行量化。在污水处理厂，SARS-CoV2RNA将在液体初沉池出水和初沉池固体中进行定量。在雨水收集系统中，SARS-CoV2RNA将从液体和固体部分进行量化。2)将在整个CWS下水道系统网络的12个选定采样点使用RT-ddPCR对SARS-CoV2 RNA进行量化，每两周一次，直至2020年6月，并在项目剩余时间每月进行一次。调查结果将被纳入一个地理信息系统，该系统包含公开可用的人口数据库，以确定新冠肺炎热点和可能的潜在致病因素。这项工作的结果将证明使用集中处理设施收集的废水来监测整个社区新冠肺炎疫情的可行性。这项工作的第二个结果将确定SARS-CoV2RNA如何在废水固体和液体之间分配。此外，这项工作将确定在新冠肺炎爆发期间，雨水是否是SARS-CoV2RNA的潜在宿主。最后，这项工作将演示如何通过对整个下水道管网进行采样来识别新冠肺炎暴发热点。如果成功，这项研究可能会导致对其他病毒爆发的其他类似监测工作，并保护国家的公共健康。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused major human health and economic impacts. One of the most critical questions is determining who is infected to help understand how rapidly the outbreak has progressed. With the continuing mismatch between testing need and capacity, alternative methods are needed to assess the outbreak. Further difficulty in monitoring the outbreak results from the fact that most infected individuals do not show COVID-19 symptoms immediately. These issues limit the ability of decision makers to determine where outbreaks are occurring within their communities, when outbreaks start, and when outbreaks slow or stop. The goal of this project is to address such limitations by developing the science behind monitoring the spread of the disease through community wastewater surveillance. To achieve this goal, the research will measure SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the wastewater system. This new detection method will allow for decision makers to assess potential outbreaks before symptomatic people request testing. In addition, results will help determine which communities have infected individuals. This is particularly important to assess whether the COVID-19 outbreak is slowing in response to interventions.The goal of this project is to determine the onset, duration, termination, and location of the COVID-19 outbreak via wastewater surveillance. This work will test two hypotheses that: 1) SARS-CoV2 virus RNA concentrations in sewage and stormwater correlates with the initiation, progression, and decline of a community’s aggregate COVID-19 infection; 2) Spatial sampling within a sewer system network can isolate the location of COVID-19 hotspots within a given community. To test these hypotheses, two objectives will be completed: 1) SARS-CoV2 RNA in four Clean Water Services (CWS, Washington County, Oregon) wastewater treatment facilities and stormwater collection systems will be quantified using reverse transcriptase droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (RT-ddPCR) on a weekly basis. In the wastewater treatment plants, SARS-CoV2 RNA will be quantified in liquid primary clarifier effluent and in primary clarifier solids. At stormwater collection systems, SARS-CoV2 RNA will be quantified from the liquid and solid fractions. 2) SARS-CoV2 RNA will be quantified using RT-ddPCR at 12 selected sampling points throughout the CWS sewer system network on a biweekly basis through June, 2020, and monthly for the remainder of the project. The results will be incorporated into a GIS system containing publicly available demographic databases to identify COVID-19 hotspots and possible underlying contributing factors. The results of this work will demonstrate the feasibility of using wastewater collected at a centralized treatment facility to monitor COVID-19 outbreaks for an entire community. A second outcome of this work will determine how SARS-CoV2 RNA partitions between wastewater solids and liquid factions. Additionally, this work will determine if stormwater is a potential reservoir of SARS-CoV2 RNA during a COVID-19 outbreak. Finally, this work will demonstrate how sampling throughout a sewer line network can identify COVID-19 outbreak hotspots. If successful, this research could lead to other similar monitoring efforts for other viral outbreaks and protect the public health of the Nation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.