Sentinel Coronavirus environmental monitoring can contribute to detecting asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 virus spreaders and can verify effectiveness of workplace COVID-19 controls

Detecting all asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 virus spreaders at a workplace requires daily testing of employees by RT-PCR, which is not practical. Over a two week period, 9 Europe and USA workplace locations were chosen to test employees for SARS-CoV-2 infection (841 tests) and high-frequency-touch point environmental surfaces (5,500 tests) for Coronavirus by RT-PCR. Of the 9 locations, 3 had one or more employees infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the two week study period. None of the employees who tested positive had symptoms at the time of testing and none developed symptoms during subsequent 14 day quarantine. Locations with significant prevalence of Coronavirus contaminated environmental surfaces were 10 times more likely to have a positive employees than locations with no or very few environmental surfaces positive for Coronavirus. Break room chairs, workbenches, and break room door handles were the most frequently contaminated environmental surfaces. Surface Coronavirus RNA was detected at very low concentrations (RT-PCR 34 to 38 C(q)). These results suggest that Coronavirus environmental monitoring may have potential to predict presence of asymptotic spreaders and to validate and verify COVID-19 control strategies on a regular basis.