COVID-19 surged in Fredericton over holidays, new wastewater data reveals
CBC
Fredericton had a surge of COVID-19 just after the holidays, newly released wastewater data indicates.
The capital was added to the Public Health Agency of Canada's COVID-19 wastewater surveillance dashboard Tuesday night, joining Moncton as the second New Brunswick location on the national website launched nine months ago.
Data dating back to Dec. 22 shows Fredericton's seven-day rolling average of viral load, expressed as the number of viral gene copies found in a millilitre of raw sewage, started out at 17 copies/mL.
By Jan. 2, it jumped to 165 copies/mL.
Some jurisdictions, such as Vancouver's Lulu Island, have seen readings over 1,000 copies/mL during the peak of the pandemic.
"Comparisons across sites can be difficult … however, a similar surge was experienced in parts of Halifax, Charlottetown and Montreal over the same time period, in addition to other areas across Canada," Anna Maddison, a Public Health Agency of Canada spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.
"Nonetheless, some sites were also relatively 'quiet' following the holiday period."
In Moncton, where sampling began in June, COVID levels reached a record-high before the holidays — on Dec. 1 — when the seven-day rolling average of viral load was 132 copies/mL, the dashboard shows.
The viral load dropped to 39 copies/mL by Jan. 5 and stood at 12, as of Jan. 19, the latest figures available.
Fredericton's levels also dropped back down to 29 copies/mL, as of Jan. 19.
Five weeks of data are required to provide "meaningful trend results," Maddison said.
The Department of Health has described wastewater surveillance as a "crucial tool for public health authorities."
People who are infected shed the virus in their stool in the form of a genetic material called ribonucleic acid, or RNA, which can be found in raw sewage, typically five to seven days before they develop symptoms.
Wastewater results can serve as an early warning of increasing COVID-19 in a community and provide information on the variants circulating.