Swabbing the Urban Environment - A Pipeline for Sampling and Detection of SARS-CoV-2 From Environmental ReservoirsMaria I. Rojas 1,2, Steven S. Giles 3, Mark Little 1,2, Rafael Baron 1,2, Isabella Livingston 1,2, Taylor R. T. Dagenais 3, Jason Baer 1,2, Ana G. Cobián-Güemes 1,2, Brandie White 1,2, Forest Rohwer 1,2
1Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 2Viral Information Institute, San Diego State University, 3Big Rose Web Design, LLC
A citizen science project was designed to recruit San Diego residents to collect environmental samples for SARS-CoV-2. A multilingual web-based platform was created for data submission using a user-friendly mobile device interface. A laboratory information management system facilitated the collection of thousands of geographically diverse samples with real-time outcome tracking.