Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in schools using built environment testing in Ottawa, Canada: A multi-facility prospective surveillance study

Nisha Thampi; Tasha Burhunduli; Jamie Strain; Ashley Raudanskis; Jason A Moggridge; Aaron Hinz; Evgueni Doukhanine; Lucas Castellani; Rees Kassen; Janine McCready; Caroline Nott; Alex Wong; Michael Fralick; Derek R MacFadden

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0300397

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in schools using built environment testing in Ottawa, Canada: A multi-facility prospective surveillance study

PLoS One. 2024 May 17;19(5):e0300397. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300397. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Nisha Thampi^{1

2}, Tasha Burhunduli², Jamie Strain², Ashley Raudanskis³, Jason A Moggridge³, Aaron Hinz^{4

5}, Evgueni Doukhanine⁶, Lucas Castellani^{7

8}, Rees Kassen^{4

5}, Janine McCready⁹, Caroline Nott^{10

11}, Alex Wong¹², Michael Fralick^{3

13}, Derek R MacFadden^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
² CHEO Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
³ Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ DNA Genotek Incorporated, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁷ Sault Area Hospital, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.
⁸ Clinical Sciences Division, Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
⁹ Michael Garron Hospital, Toronto East Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁰ The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
¹¹ Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
¹² Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, Texas A&M AgriLife, Fort Worth, Texas, United States of America.
¹³ Division of General Internal Medicine, Sinai Health System, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Classroom and staffroom floor swabs across six elementary schools in Ottawa, Canada were tested for SARS-CoV-2. Environmental test positivity did not correlate with student grade groups, school-level absenteeism, pediatric COVID-19-related hospitalizations, or community SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels. Schools in neighbourhoods with historically elevated COVID-19 burden showed a negative but non-significant association with lower swab positivity.

Copyright: © 2024 Thampi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Multicenter Study

MeSH terms

Built Environment
COVID-19* / diagnosis
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Canada / epidemiology
Child
Female
Humans
Male
Ontario / epidemiology
Prospective Studies
SARS-CoV-2* / isolation & purification
Schools*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by funding from a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/193.html) Operating Grant [EGA 179419], received by NT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.