Predicting daily COVID-19 case rates from SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations across a diversity of wastewater catchments
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Abstract
We assessed the relationship between municipality COVID-19 case rates and SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in the primary sludge of corresponding wastewater treatment facilities. Over 1,000 daily primary sludge samples were collected from six wastewater treatment facilities with catchments serving 18 cities and towns in the State of Connecticut, USA. Samples were analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations during a six-month time period that overlapped with fall 2020 and winter 2021 COVID-19 outbreaks in each municipality. We fit a single regression model to estimate reported case rates in the six municipalities from SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations collected daily from corresponding wastewater treatment facilities. Results demonstrate the ability of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary sludge to estimate COVID-19 reported case rates across treatment facilities and wastewater catchments, with coverage probabilities ranging from 0.94 to 0.96. Leave-one-out cross validation suggests that the model can be broadly applied to wastewater catchments that range in more than one order of magnitude in population served. Estimation of case rates from wastewater data can be useful in locations with limited testing availability or testing disparities, or delays in individual COVID-19 testing programs.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.27.21256140: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.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:Limitations: This modeling approach relies on statistical relationships between wastewater primary sludge RNA concentrations and COVID-19 case rates, which are primarily based on diagnostic test results. The reported prediction intervals reflect the variability in these reported case rates. While commonly used as a proxy, reported cases …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.27.21256140: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.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:Limitations: This modeling approach relies on statistical relationships between wastewater primary sludge RNA concentrations and COVID-19 case rates, which are primarily based on diagnostic test results. The reported prediction intervals reflect the variability in these reported case rates. While commonly used as a proxy, reported cases are believed to underestimate infection due to asymptomatic COVID-19 infections.20 Clinical testing volumes in the municipalities considered were dynamic over the study period; responding to events such as school openings, holidays, and shifting of resources to locations with increasing case rates. The measured RNA concentrations in wastewater are not subject to such variation in testing policy and should therefore exhibit a more direct relationship to the unobservable changes in SARS-CoV-2 infection in the community. While clinical testing data is considered an imperfect measure of infection, even in locations with strong testing programs, we note that the data resulting from testing programs has been indispensable in understanding the progression of outbreaks and initiating action to stem the spread of COVID-19 throughout the world. That case results can be estimated from SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in sewage sludge provides an added measure of confidence in the use of reported cases to monitor the epidemic. Summary: Measuring the concentration of pathogens in domestic wastewater can be a useful indicator of infection trends within a populatio...
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.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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