COVID-19 viral load in Winnipeg wastewater relatively stable: report
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/05/2022 (1262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
There’s still significant COVID-19 transmission happening in Winnipeg, recent wastewater data shows.
On Friday, the Public Health Agency of Canada published updated sewage surveillance figures that show the viral load in Winnipeg is relatively stable, with a slight downward trend in recent days. Compared with major Canadian cities, Winnipeg’s concentration of COVID-19 is generally lower, the data suggests.
The highest presence of COVID-19 was detected in wastewater samples from the city’s west end, while the lowest levels were from north end samples, according to a seven-day rolling average indicating the viral load by geographic area as of April 28. (The viral load was 131 copies per millilitre in the West End, 60 in the south end, and 29 in the north end.)
Current levels are nowhere near as high as last spring, and have declined significantly since a serious spike in late December/early January, when many Winnipeggers were becoming infected with the Omicron variant.
However, the viral load rose again in late March/early April, suggesting COVID-19 transmission remains prevalent.
Wastewater samples are being used to monitor COVID-19 levels across Canada in the absence of widespread lab testing in most provinces. Municipal sewage sampling data is being collected and distributed at a national level to determine COVID-19 outbreak sites or the emergence of new variants, the Public Health Agency of Canada has stated.
On Friday, the agency launched an easy-to-read online dashboard that displays the wastewater surveillance data for several major cities in Canada dating to fall 2020.
The data shows Montreal has some of the lowest concentrations of COVID-19 when compared with Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg.
“The Public Health Agency of Canada is working in collaboration with other federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments as well as academia across Canada, through the pan-Canadian wastewater surveillance network which is monitoring the spread of COVID-19 in major Canadian cities to inform public health action and decision-making,” the agency stated in its news release.
