Active environmental surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Midwestern United States meatpacking plants

Suzanna M Storms and James F Lowe

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 12, 1-8

Abstract: This pilot project investigated environmental SARS-CoV-2 presence in seven Midwestern meatpacking plants from May 2020 to January 2021. This study investigated social distancing and infection control practices and incorporated environmental sampling of surfaces and air in employee common areas. All plants increased their social distancing efforts, increased the frequency of cleaning and disinfecting worker areas, and screened for symptomatic people to prevent entry into the workplace. 575 samples from common areas were collected and evaluated with RT-qPCR for the presence of SARS-CoV-2. 42/367 surface samples were positive, while no virus was detected in air samples. Case positive data from the counties surrounding each plant showed peak positive SARS-CoV-2 cases from 12–55 days before the virus was detected in the plant, indicating that environmental sampling is likely a lagging indicator of community and plant infection.

Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261704 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 61704&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0261704

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261704

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().