Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan who have set up a wastewater monitoring program for COVID-19 have been asked by provincial health officials to extend their research across the province. USask Toxicologist, Dr. John Giesey, says right now their project focuses on Saskatoon, Prince Albert, North Battleford and two First Nations. He says it’s not up to them as researchers to be running a routine monitoring program, and adds that, instead health officials should be the technology to get it done themselves or hire a private contractor. Dr. Giesy says they have published a paper which details how everything is done.

Dr. Giesy says, “The paper lays out in great detail how we do everything – how to normalize the data for population and take care of different variants and things like that.” The paper was published in the a special edition of the high-impact journal ACS ES&T Water. It isn’t intended for the general audience and is instead intended for scientists to see how the research team’s standard operating procedures work.