I do not wish to underestimate the risks - of course we need to take biohazard precautions when working around wastewater. However, as far as I'm aware there is no evidence of SARS-CoV2 in faeces. Indeed the article in Nature specifically tested for infectious virions in the faeces of infected patients and found none, but plenty of viral RNA (ref. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2196-x).To make the further jump in logic, that coronavirus can also be found in sewage water, is flawed. The Dutch study, and others, have only found viral RNA. The study by KWR and RIVM is great at highlighting a potential method to track infection by sampling sewers, but it is widely being misinterpreted as evidence of a faecal-oral transmission route. I wish the study's authors had made this clearer in their paper.

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I do not wish to underestimate the risks - of course we need to take biohazard precautions when working around wastewater. However, as far as I'm aware there is no evidence of SARS-CoV2 in faeces. Indeed the article in Nature specifically tested for infectious virions in the faeces of infected patients and found none, but plenty of viral RNA (ref. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2196-x).

To make the further jump in logic, that coronavirus can also be found in sewage water, is flawed. The Dutch study, and others, have only found viral RNA.

The study by KWR and RIVM is great at highlighting a potential method to track infection by sampling sewers, but it is widely being misinterpreted as evidence of a faecal-oral transmission route. I wish the study's authors had made this clearer in their paper.