High-resolution within-sewer SARS-CoV-2 surveillance facilitates informed intervention.

To assist in the COVID-19 public health guidance on a college campus, daily composite wastewater samples were withdrawn at 20 manhole locations across the University of Colorado Boulder campus. Low-cost autosamplers were fabricated in-house to enable an economical approach to this distributed study. These sample stations operated from August 25th until November 23rd during the fall 2020 semester, with 1512 samples collected. The concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in each sample was quantified through two comparative reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reactions (RT-qPCRs). These methods were distinct in the utilization of technical replicates and normalization to an endogenous control. (1) Higher temporal resolution compensates for supply chain or other constraints that prevent technical or biological replicates. (2) The data normalized by an endogenous control agreed with the raw concentration data, minimizing the utility of normalization. The raw wastewater concentration values reflected SARS-CoV-2 prevalence on campus as detected by clinical services. Overall, combining the low-cost composite sampler with a method that quantifies the SARS-CoV-2 signal within six hours enabled actionable and time-responsive data delivered to key stakeholders. With daily reporting of the findings, wastewater surveillance assisted in decision making during critical phases of the pandemic on campus, from detecting individual cases within populations ranging from 109 to 2048 individuals to monitoring the success of on-campus interventions.

Pandemics and Supply Chain Management Research: Toward a Theoretical Toolbox.

The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the world and revealed the critical importance of supply chain management-perhaps more so than any other event in modern history-in navigating crises. The extensive scope of disruption, massive spillover of effects across countries and industries, and extreme shifts in demand and supply that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate that pandemics are qualitatively different from typical disruptions. As such, pandemics require scholars to take a fresh look at what lenses offer understanding of supply chain phenomena in order to help supply chain managers better prepare for the next pandemic and foster transiliency (i.e., the ability to simultaneously restore some processes and change-often radically-others). To help scholars and managers achieve these aims, we offer an agenda for supply chain management research on pandemics by considering how the key tenets of well-known and emergent theories can illuminate challenges and potential solutions. Specifically, we consider how resource dependence theory, institutional theory, resource orchestration theory, structural inertia, game theory, real options theory, event systems theory, awareness-motivation-capability framework, prospect theory, and tournament theory offer ideas that can help scholars build knowledge about pandemics' effects on supply chains as well as help managers formulate responses.