Researchers who do the testing on wastewater for some Saskatchewan cities says in Saskatoon the viral load for COVID-19 are still very high, but seem to be starting to trend down in the second surge of this save of COVID-19. Prince Albert and North Battleford continue upward.

Viral RNA load in Saskatoon’s wastewater has decreased by 35.3 per cent in the reporting period up to April 20 compared to the previous week. The proportions of SARS-CoV-2 RNA load in Saskatoon’s wastewater were one hundred per cent Omicron BA.2.

Viral RNA load in Prince Albert’s wastewater has increased by 112.7 per cent in the reporting period up to April 18 compared to the previous week. Almost 81 per cent of the virus represented is the Omicron BA2 which is the variant of the Omicron strain of the virus while just over 14 per cent is Omicron.

Viral RNA load in North Battleford’s wastewater has increased by 60.1 per cent in the reporting period up to April 17 compared to the week prior. Only 1 per cent of the RNA load is the original Omicron while 97.8 per cent is the BA.2 variant.

However, testing has shown 5.4 per cent is other lineages of COVID-19 in Prince Albert and 1.2 per cent in North Battleford – but more testing is needed to confirm exactly what it is.