When Did COVID-19 Emerge in Minnesota? An Analysis of Newborn Saliva Swabs Spanning 11/2019 through 3/2022

Led by Mark R. Schleiss, MD, professor, Department of Pediatrics, this study will determine if COVID-19 RNA can be detected in newborn saliva swabs, which would reflect potential perinatal transmission in colonized women. Previous research has shown that COVID-19 RNA is present in stool samples as well as aerosolized droplets. It is also increasingly recognized that asymptomatic individuals (including pregnant patients) shed virus and infect others even though they don't know that they are contagious. However, these potential routes of transmission have not been examined in maternal-fetal research, although they have significant implications for obstetrical monitoring and management. The study will also examine the timing of emergence of COVID-19. "We hypothesize that COVID-19 was circulating in the Twin Cities in late 2019," said Schleiss. "Our collection of purified nucleic acids from saliva swabs of 20,000 Minnesota newborns, dating back to 2017, is a highly unique resource and provides one of the only opportunities to retrospectively address the pre-pandemic prevalence and emergence of COVID-19. We hypothesize that PCR testing of infant mouth swabs can detect asymptomatic infant colonization, and give us clues about the timing and emergence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Minnesota."