THE SPREAD OF COVID
City's sewage offers clues
There's COVID-19 in the city's sewage and determining how much is there could bolster the city's response to pandemic's second wave.
Tzu-chiao Chao and Nicole Hansmaier with the University of Regina are helming a research project that examines the city's sewage as a means to determine how many people may be infected with COVID-19.
“The most important information we can deliver is to see if we have a discrepancy between the number, or viral load, in the sewage system versus known active cases,” said Chao, a U of R environmental proteomics scientist.
The City of Regina is not in the driver's seat on this project according to an emailed statement from the city. Instead, it is in charge of supplying examples of excrement to the scientist at the U of R.
If a discrepancy is found, that could indicate that more testing is needed, or that there has been an outbreak or surge that has not yet been detected.
“It could give us a heads up if something is not quite right,” said Chao.
It could also offer confirmation that current testing efforts are sufficient, or suggest a high number of asymptomatic cases.
A civic snapshot of health observed through municipal muck is nothing new, but it's new to Regina said Hansmaier, an assistant biology professor. Analysis of civic wastewater was part of the effort to eradicate polio and to detect levels of hepatitis within a city.
Such programs have successfully predicted a spikes in COIVD-19 cases. Researchers in Saskatoon have already implemented a program and are communicating with their Regina counterparts.
“Between when we got rid of polio and now, we also seem to have forgot that we can use this nice tool kit,” Hansmaier said.
The point of this research is not for it to be solely an academic pursuit, but one that could translate into proactive measurements and surveillance of disease.
“We're looking at the biological information from a lot of people, the whole city essentially, in one go. So rather than testing every person individually, we get a composite view,” said Chao.
Hansmaier said the Regina project is a little behind, since the supplier who sold testing kits was fresh out of product by the time they tried to procure any.
“We've tried to develop an alternative measure so that we are not entirely dependant on the kits,” said Hansmaier. “Supply and demand was an issue that slowed us down.”
Chao said it will be weeks before there is sufficient raw data, and it will be some time until accurate modelling can be developed to properly and accurately measure the data.
“One never knows until one actually has enough data to analyze,” he said. Without accurate modelling, which is being developed with engineers at the U of R, the data will be difficult to sift through.