A look inside Waterloo Region’s wastewater surveillance program
CTV
Over the last several weeks, local wastewater testing has been picking up increased signals of the virus.
You may not have heard as much about the spread of COVID-19 lately, but the threat remains.
Wastewater testing continues in Waterloo Region and over the last several weeks, it’s been picking up increased signals of the virus.
To better understand how the data is gathered and what it reveals, CTV News got an inside look at the process.
The journey starts with a visit to ground-zero for Waterloo Region’s COVID-19 wastewater surveillance, the Kitchener Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“Samples are collected five days a week during the workweek,” wastewater engineer Kristina Lee explains.
It may not looks like much, but the human wastewater contains a wealth of information, revealing what’s happening that day.
“We get snapshots of the wastewater over the 24-hour period, and it collects them in a large container,” Lee says.
