Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater during New York City’s second wave of COVID-19: Sewershed-level trends and relationships to publicly available clinical testing data

  1. Catherine Hoar
  2. Francoise Chauvin
  3. Alexander Clare
  4. Hope McGibbon
  5. Esmeraldo Castro
  6. Samantha Patinella
  7. Dimitrios Katehis
  8. John J. Dennehy
  9. Monica Trujillo
  10. Davida S. Smyth
  11. Andrea I. Silverman

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Abstract

New York City’s ongoing wastewater monitoring program tracked trends in sewershed-level SARS-CoV-2 loads starting in the fall of 2020, just before the start of the City’s second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. During a five-month study period, from November 8, 2020 to April 11, 2021, viral loads in influent wastewater from each of New York City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants were measured and compared to new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases for the populations in each corresponding sewershed, estimated from publicly available clinical testing data. We found significant positive correlations between viral loads in wastewater and new COVID-19 cases. The strength of the correlations varied depending on the sewershed, with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients ranging between 0.38 and 0.81 (mean = 0.55). Based on a linear regression analysis of a combined data set for New York City, we found that a 1 log 10 change in the SARS-CoV-2 viral load in wastewater corresponded to a 0.6 log 10 change in the number of new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases/day in a sewershed. An estimated minimum detectable case rate between 2 - 8 cases/day/100,000 people was associated with the method limit of detection in wastewater. This work offers a preliminary assessment of the relationship between wastewater monitoring data and clinical testing data in New York City. While routine monitoring and method optimization continue, information on the development of New York City’s ongoing wastewater monitoring program may provide insights for similar wastewater-based epidemiology efforts in the future.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.08.22270666: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: Sample collection and processing: 24-h flow-weighted composite influent wastewater samples were collected from each of NYC’s 14 WRRFs twice weekly beginning August 31, 2020.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analyses were performed using R, and figures were created using GraphPad Prism.21,22
    GraphPad
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The limitations of clinical testing are in fact a major driver for the application of WBE, which aims to provide community-level information free from clinical testing bias.37–39 Continued population-level monitoring from wastewater data could become increasingly useful in areas where clinical testing rates decline or resources for clinical testing are limited. Linear regressions for the combined data set are presented in Figure 3 with data collected on dates with over 10% positive COVID-19 testing rates removed. Removing data associated with potentially inadequate testing from the combined data set did not significantly change the regression (Analysis of Covariance, p > 0.05) compared to the full data set without filtering (Figure S.5). After the peak in COVID-19 cases in NYC in January 2021, there was a decline in cases across all sewersheds. To assess whether the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 loads in wastewater and new clinical COVID-19 cases was significantly different during the period of declining cases from that during the period when cases were increasing, we compared separate linear regressions for the data associated with the rise in case rates (data prior to January 2021) and the decline in case rates (data after January 2021). No significant differences were found between the slopes of the linear regression lines determined using the full combined data set and the data separated based on time period. The slope of the linear regression line for the full combined...

    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.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.08.22270666 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1039/d1ew00747e