Wastewater monitoring finds 80 per cent of people with COVID have Omicron

It works separately from currently overwhelmed clinical testing, but confirms what public health has been saying: 80 per cent of people with COVID-19 have the Omicron variant, instead of the Delta.

During Friday's regional community update, Canada Research Chair in Water Quality Protection in the department of biology at the University of Waterloo, Mark Servos, said that this supports public health's conclusion that there's very widespread community exposure to the virus, and that will continue to increase.

He said it's “very clear” that Omicron is driving the surge in COVID-19 cases, and to see something increasing so rapidly was “almost frightening.”

“Omicron came in and we found out about it in a couple days and then within a week or two, we were starting to see it in the wastewater all across the whole province, and it just went up so dramatically, so quickly, it was stunning to us,” Servos said.

He said the increase was as much as 10 times higher than any other values during previous waves of the pandemic.

But, wastewater monitoring does provide an upside.

“I think we have this independent tool that's going to allow us to see the decline of Omicron very quickly, and even if clinical testing is still overwhelmed, the wastewater should give us a tool to see what the trends are,” Servos said. 

He said it will be very useful in the coming weeks to track a potential decline of Omicron. 

Servos added that wastewater monitoring is tracking well with clinical tests and is a complimentary approach to measuring infections. 

The region and the University of Waterloo have been working together to surveil wastewater to monitor trends in COVID-19.

It's done through testing for the presence of fragments of the virus, and collects data from Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge.

Anyone who uses the toilet is captured in the wastewater signal, which is ongoing and updated on the region's public dashboard.

“It's regardless of whether you're symptomatic, whether you have a vaccine or not, your willingness, or your ability to be able to be tested,” Servos said.