The COVID-19 wastewater report from USask’s Global Institute for Water Security states that the viral load in the past week increased significantly in all three cities, Saskatoon, Prince Albert and North Battleford, and the overall trend for the last ten weeks has been up.

Professor John Giesy suggests the pause las week was a temporary lull in what has been an upward trend during the seventh wave of COVID. He says the viral loads are rising, and the rate of the increase is accelerating and he notes that there is no weekly data coming from the province on hospitalizations, so there is no way to compare their wastewater results to the number of people testing positive or the number of people in hospital with more severe symptoms.

The viral load in Saskatoon has increased by over 77 per cent, and is the seventh largest viral load since the beginning of the year. In all three cities, it’s Omicron and variants, but none of the newest variant, BA.75 yet. The viral load in Prince Albert is up by over 101 per cent, compared to the week before and in North Battleford the COVID viral load in the wastewater is up over 47 per cent.

Researchers from USask’s Global Institute for Water Security will be placing equipment in more cities and First Nations in the future. Giesy says they will train local citizens to use theses GeneXpert systems which require little sample preparation so they can conduct community-based monitoring. They can be tailored for other viral and bacterial diseases, so these systems can be used to monitor for other things as well, like the flu, polio, or the common cold.

Six of these systems come from a grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and they cost about $65,000 each. The contract also provides supplies for monitoring for COVID through July of next year. This is in addition to the PHAC contract to monitor in Saskatoon, Prince Albert, and North Battleford, and Health Canada’s funding for the development of chemical methods to monitor wastewater.