Collingwood joins Ontario Wastewater Surveillance Initiative to test for COVID-19
The Town of Collingwood collected its first set of samples last week as part of the Ontario Wastewater Surveillance Initiative. This effort to assist Ontario’s COVID19 Preparedness Plan is an attempt to quickly identify, manage, and prevent outbreaks of COVID-19.
Since many individuals who may be carrying COVID-19 are asymptomatic, they may not be getting tested. Delays in testing, and receiving results, for individuals who are showing symptoms makes collecting and testing wastewater a quicker way to detect if COVID19 is present in a community.
Scientific studies have shown that people with active COVID-19 infections shed the virus in their stool, sometimes even before symptoms start. This has prompted the international rise of Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) to monitor the presence of coronavirus genetic material (RNA) in wastewater as another screening tool to help identify the community spread of COVID-19.
With Ontario in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the province is exploring ways to monitor the presence of COVID-19 in a community even if people are not showing symptoms. As such, the Province has decided to invest over $12M in a wastewater surveillance initiative in Ontario. They reached out to the Town of Collingwood to participate in this program where staff will collect and submit a weekly wastewater sample for analysis for the coronavirus RNA. This sampling program allows health care professionals to track the increasing or decreasing trend of COVID-19 in Collingwood and implement proactive controls, if required. As the program progresses, sampling frequency from the Collingwood wastewater treatment plant may increase by up to three times per week.
“We are very excited to be participating in this innovative program and doing what we can to help the local health care professionals respond to this global pandemic,” Says Heather McGinnity, Manager, Environmental Services.
The wastewater samples are collected from an automated composite sampler at the headworks of the wastewater treatment plant. Staff retrieve the sample from the composite sampler, mix it well, pour 200 mL into a polypropylene bottle and then courier the sample to the laboratory for analysis. Although there is no epidemiological evidence that wastewater is a route of transmission of COVID-19, staff wear latex gloves, goggles and a ventilator as a precaution when collecting these samples.
Collingwood is among several other Simcoe-Muskoka municipalities participating in the initiative, including Barrie, Orillia and Midland.
