Non-expert summaryThe executive summary of this US EPA report states:
"A large-scale aerosol release of a persistent, disease-causing biological agent can result in contamination of a wide area, and may require significant time and resources for recovery depending on the severity of adverse health effects on the exposed population(s). Many unknowns are associated with characterization and clearance sampling during response to a wide-area (including indoor, outdoor, and underground area) biological incident. The biological agent and its characteristics, the release mechanism, amount of contaminant released, and a plethora of environmental and meteorological factors are completely separate, yet interconnected processes that greatly influence the extent and level of contamination.
Similarly, decisions related to the sampling strategy (i.e., sample medium, sampling area, spacing, etc.) will affect the cost, time, amount of waste generated, and personnel (i.e., resource demand) required to characterize and clear the contaminated area. The process of understanding how these elements influence one another and contribute to the overall problem is referred to as a systems approach. To what degree sampling and, more specifically, variations in the sampling strategy interact and contribute to overall resource demand, following a wide area biological incident, is still largely unknown. To date, there have been no attempts to model characterization sampling following a wide-area biological incident."