The EPA Facility COVID-19 Status Dashboard
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This is an invited presentation in a session facilitated by Wayne Cascio at the 2024 NEHA conference, abstract for session is below:
This session focuses on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 within a population. Research on EPA’s Facilities COVID-19 Dashboard, salivary fluid antibody assay, and SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance will be presented. The first of three presentations share how EPA researchers developed an EPA Facility COVID-19 Dashboard Tool to help protect its workforce health and safety during the COVID pandemic. The tool uses publicly available and fit-for-purpose data, as well as scientifically credible sources of information. This Dashboard informed Agency leadership about the level of COVID infection in communities with EPA facilities, which was then used to inform decision-making about keeping EPA workspaces safe for staff. A second presentation provides an overview of how EPA adapted a salivary antibody test that had been previously used for potentially waterborne pathogens to test for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. This research advanced the ability to understand how COVID spreads and can be used to complement findings from other types of community surveillance. A third presentation provides research findings on wastewater surveillance for COVID. Aside from actual testing, there were limited indicators for monitoring how COVID spread throughout communities. Through collaborative work with Ohio and CDC, EPA piloted and implemented a study to look at factors affecting the molecular signal of SARS-COV-2 in sewage as a marker of community COVID prevalence. Through this activity, EPA introduced new information into the COVID response management and developed a monitoring approach that can be used for wastewater as an early public health indicator.