The present disclosure relates to a method of detecting and quantifying a virus-of-interest from human viral shed in a community, including: concentrating viral material from a wastewater sample to form a viral nucleic acid material; measuring an amount of a virus-of-interest nucleic acid in the viral nucleic acid material to obtain a first amount; measuring an amount of a marker or bacteriophage nucleic acid in the viral nucleic acid material to obtain a second amount; and forming a ratio of the first amount to the second amount to estimate a level of virus-of-interest from human viral shed within a community. In embodiments, methods for quantifying, monitoring, and/or identifying virus-of-interest such as SARS-CoV-2 are also disclosed.