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. None of the employees who tested positive had symptoms at the time of testing and none developed symptoms during subsequent 14 day quarantine. Locations with significant prevalence of Coronavirus contaminated environmental surfaces were 10 times more likely to have a positive employees than locations with no or very few environmental surfaces positive for Coronavirus. Break room chairs, workbenches, and break room door handles were the most frequently contaminated environmental surfaces. Surface Coronavirus RNA was detected at very low concentrations (RT-PCR 34 to 38 C_q). These results suggest that Coronavirus environmental monitoring may have potential to predict presence of asymptotic spreaders and to validate and verify COVID-19 control strategies on a regular basis.

在工作场所检测所有无症状或症状前的 COVID-19 病毒传播者需要通过 RT-PCR 对员工进行日常检测，这是不切实际的。在两周内，选择了 9 个欧洲和美国工作场所，通过 RT-PCR 对员工进行 SARS-CoV-2 感染检测（841 次检测）和高频接触点环境表面冠状病毒检测（5,500 次检测）。在这 9 个地点中，有 3 个地点在两周的研究期间有一名或多名员工感染了 SARS-CoV-2。检测呈阳性的员工在检测时均未出现症状，在随后的 14 天隔离期间也没有出现症状。受冠状病毒污染的环境表面显着流行的地点，其员工呈阳性的可能性是没有或很少环境表面呈冠状病毒阳性的地点的 10 倍。休息室椅子、工作台和休息室门把手是最常受污染的环境表面。在极低浓度下检测到表面冠状病毒 RNA（RT-PCR 34 至 38 C _q ）。这些结果表明，冠状病毒环境监测可能有潜力预测渐近传播者的存在，并定期验证和验证 COVID-19 控制策略。