Sentinel Coronavirus environmental monitoring can contribute to detecting asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 virus spreaders and can verify effectiveness of workplace COVID-19 controls.

Detecting all asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 virus spreaders at a workplace requires daily testing of employees by RT-PCR, which is not practical. Over a two week period, 9 Europe and USA workplace locations were chosen to test employees for SARS-CoV-2 infection (841 tests) and high-frequency-touch point environmental surfaces (5,500 tests) for Coronavirus by RT-PCR. Of the 9 locations, 3 had one or more employees infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the two week study period.