HOW MONITORING WASTEWATER PROVIDES THE MOST ACCURATE LOOK AT COVID19

By Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada

As the Alberta government scales back on widespread PCR testing to focus on those in high-priority settings such as health care, the province is now relying on wastewater surveillance more than ever before to track the prevalence of COVID-19 in Alberta.

Omicron is spreading farther and faster than anything we've ever seen before, and no one in Canada will be able to maintain PCR testing for every community case with mild symptoms," said Dr. Deena Hinshaw in a COVID-19 update on Dec. 23.

The province's wastewater — and the amount of infection in it — has been monitored for two years by a group of 23 researchers in a joint project with the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

The data, which is updated publicly three times a week, depicts the amount of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the province's wastewater. That's the virus that causes COVID-19, which individuals shed in their feces before symptoms arise.

That's according to Dr. Michael Parkins, one of the research leads on the wastewater monitoring project in Calgary. He's also an associate professor at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine and section chief of infectious diseases for Alberta Health Services.