From a recent Technical Brief from  the WHO (World Health Organisation)

“There is no evidence to date that COVID-19 virus has been transmitted via sewerage systems, with or without wastewater treatment. Furthermore, there is no evidence that sewage and wastewater treatment workers contracted SARS, another type of coronavirus that caused a large outbreak of acute respiratory illness in 2003.”

“Currently, there is no evidence on the survival of COVID-19 virus in drinking water or sewage. The morphology and chemical structure of COVID-19 virus is very similar to other surrogate human coronaviruses for which there is evidence on both survival in the environment and effective inactivation measures. Thus, this brief draw upon the existing evidence base and, more generally, existing WHO guidance on how to protect against viruses in sewage and drinking-water. This document is based on the current knowledge of the COVID-19 virus and it will be updated as new information becomes available.” 

EurEau’s statement on Covid-19 and water can be found here. Key points are below.

Keeping consumers safe

Consumers have questions and concerns over water during the Covid-19 disease outbreak. Many of these concerns come from media that incorrectly report on research. According to the latest information from the WHO and the UN, water does not transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Drinking water

All currently available evidence shows that the drinking water we consume is protected from the virus.

If your water comes from a groundwater source, the aquifer is covered by layers of rock and soil, and is therefore safe from contamination.

If your tap water is abstracted from surface sources, drinking water suppliers generally have a multi-stage water treatment including at least coagulation, filtration and disinfection. Our experience, and research results indicate, that any potential viruses are effectively and efficiently eliminated by this multi-barrier system.

Drinking water providers conduct regular tests to ensure that water is safe and healthy.

Waste water

Also according to the latest scientific research, the risk of direct transmission of the Covid-19 disease via faeces of infected persons appears to be very low. To date, no case of a faecal-oral transmission of the virus is known.

We note that many studies are underway during this crisis. The Dutch institutes KWR and RIVM announced on 25 March 2020 that they had detected traces of the RNA of the virus in raw waste water. The RNA is the genetic material of the virus. This was confirmed by an analysis of the influent of nine WWTPs across Flanders (Belgium); in the same analysis, the effluent was shown to be completely free of virus RNA.

It should be clearly emphasised that the presence of traces of RNA is not related with any ‘live’ or infectious virus.

All available information shows that people working with waste water are well protected when they fully respect the usual occupational health and safety precautions and use their normal personal protection equipment (PPE).

The current crisis may cause disruptions in the supply of PPE. EU and national authorities must ensure that waste water operators are considered as critical and get priority access to sufficient supplies of appropriate PPE.

You can do your part

Domestic consumers should only flush pee, poop and toilet paper and take the usual precautions around disposing of biological (human) waste responsibly. All other waste, such as wet wipes, kitchen paper, masks and latex or plastic gloves should be disposed of in the bin along with other household waste.

Waste water operators across Europe are finding an increasing number of these items in the sewage infrastructure. They block pipes and pumps, causing sewer blockages and flooding. Help us to keep your waste water infrastructure functioning properly.

For all consumers of Europe’s water services, the message is clear: your drinking water and waste water services are safe and remain so, and we are working 24/7 to keep delivering these to you as we always have!

ENDS

One of the drivers of concern is this paper from 2009. The abstract is below.

Abstract

The emergence of a previously unknown coronavirus infection, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), demonstrated that fecally contaminated liquid droplets are a potential vehicle for the spread of a respiratory virus to large numbers of people. To assess potential risks from this pathway, there is a need for surrogates for SARS coronavirus to provide representative data on viral survival in contaminated water. This study evaluated survival of two surrogate coronaviruses, transmissible gastroenteritis (TGEV) and mouse hepatitis (MHV). These viruses remained infectious in water and sewage for days to weeks. At 25 °C, time required for 99% reduction in reagent-grade water was 22 days for TGEV and 17 days for MHV. In pasteurized settled sewage, times for 99% reduction were 9 days for TGEV and 7 days for MHV. At 4 °C, there was <1 log₁₀ infectivity decrease for both viruses after four weeks. Coronaviruses can remain infectious for long periods in water and pasteurized settled sewage, suggesting contaminated water is a potential vehicle for human exposure if aerosols are generated.

It also emerged recently that the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) is starting to analyse wastewater for coronavirus has started collecting samples to map the presence of coronavirus in Finnish wastewater. THL is starting sample collection in cooperation with the University of Tampere.