City of Thunder Bay to start collecting wastewater samples for COVID-19 testing

The City of Thunder Bay will soon begin collecting samples of wastewater which will be tested for COVID-19.

"Essentially, it's wastewater-based epidemiology," said Ian Morgan, the city's chief chemist. "That really just means we're looking at the wastewater that's coming through the pipes, typically through fecal matter."

"That has the ability to detect asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and symptomatic infections," he said. "We're able to detect whether or not there's an increase or decrease of COVID-19 RNA, or fragments of RNA. And if there is an increase, that may give us [an] early detection warning that there will be an increase in positive results later on down the road."

Morgan said the two-year project is in collaboration with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, and Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks.

"We'll be sending one sample per week for the next eight weeks to get a baseline of results for our particular city," Morgan said, adding those samples will be sent to a lab at the University of Windsor for analysis.

After that, the city will send one to three samples a week to the Health Science North Research Institute lab in Sudbury.

And while Morgan said initially, samples will be collected from the city's water pollution control plant, there may be opportunities to take samples from other places, as well, such as specific neighbourhoods, to track COVID-19 in more detail.

Samples will begin being collected in the next couple of weeks, Morgan said.