Journal of Environmental and Public Health

Research Article

A Simple Method to Detect SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater at Low Virus Concentration

Table 1

SARS-CoV-2 detection from pooled wastewater negative for SARS-CoV-2 with and without SARS-CoV-2 spike.


SARS-CoV-2 seeded (GC)	N		ORF1ab		S
SARS-CoV-2 seeded (GC)	Mean Ct + SD	Copies/mL ± SD	Mean Ct + SD	Copies/mL ± SD	Mean Ct + SD	Copies/mL ± SD

2 × 10e4	18.28 ± 0.16	4,821.14 + 1,250.18	18.94 ± 0.06	5,081.59 + 1,785.77	19.37 ± 0.11	9,031.87 + 4,093.59
2 × 10e3	19.85 ± 0.08	1,145.74 + 58.11	20.04 ± 0.42	546.70 + 7.08	19.65 ± 0.13	893.20 + 12.93
2 × 10e2	22.33 ± 0.10	114.03 + 7.79	23.29 ± 0.16	86.57 + 3.94	22.54 ± 0.24	92.21 + 0.82
2 × 10e1	24.39 ± 0.08	12.07 + 1.51	27.44 ± 2.68	11.72 + 15.74	26.79 ± 2.69	11.89 + 17.23
2 × 10e0	28.60 ± 0.41	1.63 + 0.47	29.13 ± 0.85	1.20 + 0.49	29.77 ± 1.54	1.63 + 1.51
No-spike^a	UD	—	UD	—	UD	—
No-spike^b	UD	—	UD	—	UD	—

^aPooled wastewater where SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA was absent. ^bAutoclaved pooled wastewater where SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA was absent. GC: genomic copies. UD: undetermined.