COVID-19 levels in Saskatoon wastewater have 'steadied' after peak: researcher

A toilet is seen in this undated file photo.

SASKATOON — A researcher at the University of Saskatchewan says the levels of COVID-19 in Saskatoon wastewater have leveled off.

Kerry McPhedran, who has a masters in science and biology and a PhD in environmental engineering, says three times a week his team will take samples from the wastewater treatment plant in Saskatoon to analyze for traces of the virus.

“We can see whether or not the virus is going up or down,” he said. “That's what our trends are, and we did have a peak a couple weeks ago, and now it's kind of steadied off. It's not going down. We are seeing that staying about where, where it's been at.”

McPhedran says because they are analyzing waste from many people who are asymptomatic, haven’t been tested yet, or are just beginning to get symptoms, they’re able to get a picture of what the number of cases will be as far as a week in advance.

“It allows people to know ahead of time if you want to,” he said.

“If you're deciding to go do something on the weekend, and you know that the peak might be coming up, you might decide not to do it that weekend, or you might decide to make different life decisions based upon that that data that you have.”

McPhedran says this kind of research will be able to help scientists be proactive when it comes to other viruses in the future.

“We can measure this wastewater, and once a virus does show up anywhere in the world, we could test for it,” he said. “We would be much, much further ahead, than waiting for it to come into Canada. So that's a major part of this, is being proactive rather than reactive.”