Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 in chlorinated swimming pool water

  1. Jonathan C Brown
  2. Maya Moshe
  3. Alex Blackwell
  4. Wendy S Barclay

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.watres.2021.117718
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.19.440446: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: Inactivation testing and titration of residual virus by TCID50 assay: Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 with water samples was carried out as described in the text.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Cells and viruses: African green monkey kidney (Vero) cells (Nuvonis Technologies) were maintained in OptiPRO SFM (Life Technologies) containing 2X GlutaMAX (Gibco).
    Vero
    suggested: None
    Human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells were maintained in DMEM, 20% FCS, 1% NEAA, 1% P/S.
    Caco-2
    suggested: CLS Cat# 300137/p1665_CaCo-2, RRID:CVCL_0025)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    A limitation of this study is that we did not test survival of SARS-CoV-2 contained within mucus or saliva mixed with swimming pool water. Further we were only able to test reduction of a virus stock with infectivity around 104 TCID50/ml due to the limited replication of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory and the need use a minimal volume of virus material during testing. Nonetheless, the viral challenge we presented equates to approximately 108 genomes, (with a Ct value of 23) which is in excess of the amount of virus typically detected in the upper respiratory tract of asymptomatic people, with an average Ct of 31.15 (Ra et al., 2021). The route by which any residual virus in swimming pool water might infect another swimmer is not clear. SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted in the air and also by direct inoculation. There is also a potential faecal-oral route of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 (Guo et al., 2021). Our findings on the susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 to inactivation by swimming pool water underscore the importance for those who maintain swimming pools to adhere to UK guidelines for chlorination, and this should give confidence in the safety of bathers when in the water. Finally, we stress that swimmers should continue to adhere to locally recommended social distancing rules both in and out of the water.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.19.440446v1 on bioRxiv