Dynamic SARS-CoV-2 surveillance model combining seroprevalence and wastewater concentrations for post-vaccine disease burden estimates

Abstract

BackgroundDespite wide scale assessments, it remains unclear how large-scale severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination affected the wastewater concentration of the virus or the overall disease burden as measured by hospitalization rates.MethodsWe used weekly SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentration with a stratified random sampling of seroprevalence, and linked vaccination and hospitalization data, from April 2021–August 2021 in Jefferson County, Kentucky (USA). Our susceptible (S\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$S$$\\end{document}), vaccinated (V\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$V$$\\end{document}), variant-specific infected (I1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${I}_{1}$$\\end{document} and I2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${I}_{2}$$\\end{document}), recovered (R\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$R$$\\end{document}), and seropositive (T\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T$$\\end{document}) model (SVI2RT\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${SV}{I}_{2}{RT}$$\\end{document}) tracked prevalence longitudinally. This was related to wastewater concentration.ResultsHere we show the 64% county vaccination rate translate into about a 61% decrease in SARS-CoV-2 incidence. The estimated effect of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant emergence is a 24-fold increase of infection counts, which correspond to an over 9-fold increase in wastewater concentration. Hospitalization burden and wastewater concentration have the strongest correlation (r = 0.95) at 1 week lag.ConclusionsOur study underscores the importance of continuing environmental surveillance post-vaccine and provides a proof-of-concept for environmental epidemiology monitoring of infectious disease for future pandemic preparedness.