Genetic variability of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and associations with community transmission
Summary
Sequencing genetic material from community wastewater facilitates the study of virus diversity. Diversity can be estimated using the variation in nucleotides and number of variants identified, increasing the information obtained from one wastewater sample. Using 12,290 wastewater sequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we found that virus diversity is a strong indicator of disease transmission, with a significant correlation between average weekly diversi
Content
# Genetic variability of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and associations with community transmission
*Published: 2026 May 14*
Sequencing genetic material from community wastewater facilitates the study of
virus diversity. Diversity can be estimated using the variation in nucleotides
and number of variants identified, increasing the information obtained from one
wastewater sample. Using 12,290 wastewater sequences of severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we found that virus diversity is a strong
indicator of disease transmission, with a significant correlation between
average weekly diversity and average weekly new COVID-19 infections. Although
the concentration of viruses is the common measure of disease transmission from
wastewater, we found that diversity is a better indicator, as it is unhampered
by the noise inherent in the wastewater. We show that multiple measures of
diversity yield similar results, which suggests that genetic diversity could be
useful for increasing the utility of wastewater data.
DOI: 10.1126/science.aed6094