SARS-CoV-2 has recently been detected in feces, which indicates that wastewater may be used to monitor viral prevalence in the community. Here, we use RT-qPCR to monitor wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 RNA over a 74-day time course. We show that changes in SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations follow symptom onset gathered by retrospective interview of patients but precedes clinical test results. In addition, we determine a nearly complete (98.5%) SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence from wastewater and use phylogenetic analysis to infer viral ancestry. Collectively, this work demonstrates how wastewater can be used as a proxy to monitor viral prevalence in the community and how genome sequencing can be used for genotyping viral strains circulating in a community.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; genome sequencing; wastewater-based epidemiology.
© 2020 The Author(s).