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a. Dr. Marc Johnson, Professor of Molecular Microbiology, and Immunology - COVID-19 Sewershed Monitoring
Dr. Johnson explained his background and his history with sewershed wastewater surveillance. Johnson started monitoring prisons to understand infections and outbreaks among the prisoners. The monitoring of sewersheds was amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of 2020, Johnson started monitoring the lineages of COVID-19 in Missouri. By the end of 2021, they were tracking the Delta variant of COVID-19, which began to pop up in Brookfield. In November of 2021, Johnson and his team were monitoring New York City. They were able to isolate the Omicron variant after a convention in New York in November of 2021 and were able to predict the spike in Omicron infections.
Johnson explained how he does genetic sequencing and what they take into account whenever they sequence an area. At times they get cryptic lineages in an area which they can attribute to several different factors. For example, Dr. Johnson spoke about an area in St. Louis containing a major airport and a nuclear facility. This also includes the animals that might use or live in that water. Johnson can test local ponds and rivers to determine what animal waste is in that body of water. Johnson explained that he sequenced a town that contained a meat processing plant that specifically processed pigs. They discovered swine flu in the wastewater. Johnson said that this could become a problem as pigs can catch bird flu, which can result in the swine flu virus mutating and possibly infecting humans. Johnson said that he is requesting more information to better analyze the areas with meat processing plants.
Johnson continues to monitor wastewater in Columbia. Johnson said that the testing can identify every disease that people have been infected with within the Columbia area except for blood-borne diseases. He said that he would like to be able to test for blood-borne illnesses such as hepatitis or HIV. The sequencing is still fairly accurate for the diseases people in Columbia are being infected with. Johnson said he hopes that reports will be published for areas that will help public health anticipate future disease outbreaks and treat underserved populations.