{"doi":"10.1101/2020.10.27.20220905","title":"Longitudinal monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on high-touch surfaces in a community setting","abstract":"Environmental surveillance of surface contamination is an unexplored tool for understanding transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in community settings. We conducted longitudinal swab sampling of high-touch non-porous surfaces in a Massachusetts town during a COVID-19 outbreak from April to June 2020. Twenty-nine of 348 (8.3 %) surface samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2, including crosswalk buttons, trash can handles, and door handles of essential business entrances (grocery store, liquor store, bank, and gas station). The estimated risk of infection from touching a contaminated surface was low (less than 5 in 10,000), suggesting fomites play a minimal role in SARS-CoV-2 community transmission. The weekly percentage of positive samples (out of n=33 unique surfaces per week) best predicted variation in city-level COVID-19 cases using a 7-day lead time. Environmental surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA on high-touch surfaces could be a useful tool to provide early warning of COVID-19 case trends.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2020,"id":118970,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":33,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9257,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":249532,"name":"Erica R. Fuhrmeister","orcid":"0000-0001-5264-7533","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":252698,"name":"Molly E. Cantrell","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249533,"name":"Ana K. Pitol","orcid":"0000-0002-7265-5677","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249534,"name":"Jenna M. Swarthout","orcid":"0000-0002-0181-0828","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249535,"name":"Julie E. Powers","orcid":"0000-0002-4670-3524","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249536,"name":"Maya Nadimpalli","orcid":"0000-0002-6526-116X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249537,"name":"Timothy R. Julian","orcid":"0000-0003-1000-0306","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249538,"name":"Amy J. Pickering","orcid":"0000-0001-6193-2221","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":252697,"name":"Abigail P. Harvey","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":80,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:03.409507Z","pmid":"33140065","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}