Wastewater Virus Detection Complements Clinical COVID-19 Testing to Limit Spread of Infection at Kenyon College
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Abstract
In-person college instruction during the 2020 pandemic required effective and economical monitoring of COVID-19 prevalence. Kenyon College and the Village of Gambier conducted measurement of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from the village wastewater plant and from an on-campus sewer line. Wastewater RNA detection revealed virus prevalence leading to individual testing and case identification. Wastewater surveillance also showed when case rates had subsided, thus limiting the need for individual clinical testing. Overall, wastewater virus surveillance allows more targeted use of individual testing and increases community confidence in student population management.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.09.21249505: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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:While the wastewater testing was useful for Kenyon’s COVID-19 surveillance, important limitations were noted. At least one positive case (September 14) was missed by the wastewater testing. Also, the testing from the village …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.09.21249505: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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:While the wastewater testing was useful for Kenyon’s COVID-19 surveillance, important limitations were noted. At least one positive case (September 14) was missed by the wastewater testing. Also, the testing from the village plant could not distinguish between cases on Kenyon’s campus versus non-Kenyon residents within the village. To focus testing on a student population, on November 30, Kenyon commenced testing from a manhole on campus. During that time, the manhole line received all wastewater from 66 students remaining on campus over the winter break. The manhole sampling revealed one possible case that may have been missed despite clinical testing of all 66 students (purple line in Figure 1). Thereafter, cases were reported in the village (population approximately 700, including the students) during a period when the campus manhole showed RNA levels below detection (indicating no student cases). Thus, the campus manhole testing appeared to successfully distinguish student cases from those off campus. For all wastewater samples, the measure we used was the RNA copies per liter from RT-PCR provided directly by the testing lab. We considered whether these results required various kinds of normalization (Figure 3). In principle, the virus concentration must be normalized to wastewater volume, which varies with user population and rainwater infiltration. In the case of the Gambier plant, the source population size varied from 700 during summer and winter break, to a high of 1...
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.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.09.21249505: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.09.21249505: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.
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.
About SciScore
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