From reading the paper it seems like this was done on samples where the SARS-COV-2 in the sample is likely to be genetically uniform. Have you done this at all on samples such as those from wastewater or sewage or environmental swabs where there are likely to be many different variants within a single sample?

This EU directive led to the spread of the unintended consequence.

This case illustrates the potential unintended consequences from attempting to do good.

This is a classic example of how progress traps occur.

Capturing nutrients in waste water closes a nutrient waste loop and seems a good example of applying circular economy thinking.

HOWEVER, at the time the decision was made to process sewage sludge into fertilizer ignored the relationship of sludge to microplastics was unknown or insufficiently explored. After the decision was made, the practice was adopted across many countries in the EU. After years of practice, the new knowledge reveals that there has been years of silent microplastic contamination. To fix the solution will require another solution, perhaps even more complex..

This illustrates the danger of applying circular economy techniques when the waste stream is not fully characterized.

Brianna Wu. (2021, June 5). MRNA is unbelievably fragile. The enzymes that degrade it are literally everywhere. That’s why they had to develop specialized lipid nanoparticles to deliver it. It would last two seconds in a sewer system. Also, it gets separated from the delivery system after it’s injected. Https://t.co/35dZ6r6UAq [Tweet]. @BriannaWu. https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status/1400998163968933888

Ministers ‘failed to act on Bedford Covid variant surge for two weeks’ | Coronavirus | The Guardian. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/ministers-failed-to-act-on-bedford-covid-variant-surge-for-two-weeks

Peccia, J., Zulli, A., Brackney, D. E., Grubaugh, N. D., Kaplan, E. H., Casanovas-Massana, A., Ko, A. I., Malik, A. A., Wang, D., Wang, M., Weinberger, D. M., & Omer, S. B. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary municipal sewage sludge as a leading indicator of COVID-19 outbreak dynamics. MedRxiv, 2020.05.19.20105999. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.19.20105999

Kaplan, Edward H, Dennis Wang, Mike Wang, Amyn A Malik, Alessandro Zulli, and Jordan H Peccia. ‘Aligning SARS-CoV-2 Indicators via an Epidemic Model: Application to Hospital Admissions and RNA Detection in Sewage Sludge’. Preprint. Infectious Diseases (except HIV/AIDS), 29 June 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.27.20141739.

Somerville, Northeastern Partner To Look For Coronavirus In City Sewage. (n.d.). Retrieved September 8, 2020, from https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/09/03/city-sewage-coronavirus

SARS-CoV-2 circulating in Italy in December 2019. (2020, June 29). News-Medical.Net. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200629/SARS-CoV-2-circulating-in-Italy-in-December-2019.aspx