Sackville is seeing a spike in COVID-19, or at least it was on June 11, the most recent date with available data on Canada’s COVID-19 wastewater monitoring dashboard.
Wastewater testing involves taking samples of sewage and testing for viral loads of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. Sewage surveillance has been used as an early warning system for infection levels, because COVID-19 can be detected in wastewater even before symptoms develop in people.
The municipality started collecting samples in February through an autosampler installed on the Crescent Street lagoon, purchased with funding from New Brunswick Public Health.
Recently, the data from the tests started to show up on the national website, so town engineer Jon Eppell took the opportunity to update council on the project at their meeting on Monday.
“One little pet project we’ve had on the go is the COVID-19 wastewater monitoring dashboard that we spoke to council about last fall,” said Eppell. “It took a while for them to have sufficient data to actually put it on the dashboard. But it is now available… I encourage you to go have a look.”
The data shows a 7-day rolling average of the viral load in the town’s sewage, and does not directly indicate numbers of cases of COVID-19. The Sackville viral load remained well below 50 for February, March and April, but rose sharply by the end of May. The most recent viral load is 155 on June 11.
The Sackville data mirrors similar trends in Moncton and Charlottetown, but data graphs from Fredericton, Saint John, and Halifax don’t show similar increases in June.
Sackville is one of ten sites collecting and reporting wastewater testing results in the province.
Sean Hatchard, a spokesperson for the province, says via email that the department of health has been “working with the regional health authorities and the Public Health Agency of Canada to further expand the wastewater surveillance networks in New Brunswick.” The newest sites include Sackville, St. Stephen, and a second site in Saint John, and Shippagan is slated to join the roster.
Hatchard says the department, “continues to explore other uses for wastewater testing, such as the monitoring of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).”
