Environmental Transmission of COVID-19
This project aims to provide critical information to understand, address and contain COVID-19 while also helping better prepare scientists, engineers and public health officials for future coronavirus outbreaks. Coronavirus persistence, environmental transmission and wastewater monitoring are areas of research that have not been explored. Working to address these research gaps, the team will be characterizing the rate of transfer of enveloped viruses between hands and surfaces and measuring inactivation kinetics of coronaviruses with UV radiation and sunlight. In collaboration with the Stanford Codiga Resource Recovery Center led by Craig Criddle, principal investigators Ali Boehm and Krista Wigginton will also work on capturing the dynamics of coronaviruses (both 2019-nCoV and others) circulating in a community by monitoring wastewater in several nearby Bay Area municipalities. This information proves critical in controlling surface transmission, predicting persistence in water treatment and the natural environment, and in catching virus circulation early in community outbreaks.
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A new wastewater testing approach capable of better detecting viral infection patterns in communities could prove a crucial step toward an informed public health response to diseases like COVID-19.