Large spikes of COVID-19 sewage in Sask. no cause for alarm: researcher | The Canadian News

COVID-19 sewage figures for three major Saskatchewan cities skyrocketed in the past 10 days, with Prince Albert rising nearly 900 percent. But a toxicologist said the numbers are not cause for alarm.

That’s because that increase, and the accompanying jumps in Saskatoon and North Battleford of 614 percent and 100 percent, respectively, show a small increase over an even small number.

They are not symptoms of a massive rise in the virus, John Giesy told Global News.

Giesy, a member of the University of Saskatchewan wastewater research team, said that recently there has been very, very little COVID-19 mRNA in the wastewater from all three cities. That means that increases of any kind will appear relatively larger. The absolute numbers, the measure of the samples in the wastewater compared to the previous weeks, are still very small.

“It could be a particle that’s there, and now we have six,” Giesy said.

“So it’s 600 percent more, which is true, but it’s still a very small number.”

The sewage in Regina shows something similar. Tzu-Chiao Chao, a molecular microbiologist and wastewater researcher at the University of Regina, said recent figures are also low.

“The trend seems to be going up a bit, but it is only the first two data points, so it is very possible that it will restart,” he said.

The numbers from the UoR research team are not as recent as those from the USask group and are measured relative to an earlier date with a lot of COVID-19 in the city, but they still show only a small increase.

Both Giesy and Chao said they are testing the Omicron variant and have not detected it yet.

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