Wastewater surveillance in Ontario is on the brink as protests intensify

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With just days to go until the Ontario government stops funding wastewater surveillance, researchers and residents who use the data fear crucial information about COVID risk is about to go dark, just as a new wave is spreading across Ontario.

Earlier this year, the Ontario government confirmed that it would stop funding the province’s widely respected wastewater surveillance program after July 31. At the time, a spokesperson said the government was ending the program, believed to cost in the range of $15 million a year, because the federal government was expanding its wastewater surveillance program and it didn’t want to duplicate the efforts.

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The federal government currently operates four testing sites in Ontario — all in the GTA. It has said it wants to expand its program in Ontario to eight to nine potential sites. The Ontario program gathers surveillance at more than 50 sites.

With the end of provincial funding fast approaching — and a summer COVID-19 wave now beginning to surge in the province — there are growing fears that people who rely on the data on COVID-19 and other diseases will be left in the dark.

There are reportedly conversations between public health officials about what wastewater surveillance will look like in the future, and an announcement from the Public Health Agency of Canada is anticipated in the coming days, said Rob Delatolla. The uOttawa engineering professor helped kick-start wastewater surveillance efforts in Ontario when his lab became the first in Canada to pick up data on the virus that causes COVID-19 in the city’s wastewater early in the pandemic.

But with days until the July 31 provincial funding end, he and other researchers have no idea whether the work will continue.

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“We are less than two weeks away from everything going dark,” said Delatolla.

He noted hospitals, including CHEO in Ottawa and others as well as public health units and the province itself, use wastewater data on COVID-19 and other diseases for planning.

Ontario Health uses the data to do resource planning, he said, including to more accurately predict the beginning of the seasonal spread of RSV, in order to administer prophylactic vaccines to the most vulnerable babies in the province, said Delatolla.

He said he fears there will be less information overall going to the public about risk of illness.

“It seems like losing wastewater at this time is going to coincide with even less information from other means. Overall, there is going to be less information going out to the public.”

Peterborough Public Health has said it will continue wastewater surveillance in partnership with Trent University. Ottawa’s medical officer of health, Dr. Vera Etches, is in discussions to find ways to continue, but nothing has been announced.

But it isn’t just researchers and public health officials who have been expressing concern about the end of Ontario’s wastewater surveillance program — the largest in the country.

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There are several letter-writing campaigns and petitions calling for the province to continue funding the wastewater program.

The group called Still COVIDing Canada started an online letters campaign in early June. So far, more than 5,200 emails have been sent to MPPs and municipal councillors about the wastewater program.

On its website (stillcoviding.ca), the advocacy group says: “Ending funding for Ontario’s wastewater surveillance network will have dangerous consequences. We will no longer have a reliable early warning system to inform everyone about the spread of emerging SARS-CoV-2 subvariants and new threats such as avian flu. Without advance warning, hospitals may be completely overwhelmed when new hyperinfectious subvariants emerge and spread exponentially.”

The website contains links to petitions as well.

A spokesperson for the advocacy group said it is clear many people depend on access to near real-time data about the prevalence of viruses such as COVID-19, influenza and RSV.

Amy Buitenhuis is among them. The Toronto woman, along with her partner and several others, started a petition to save wastewater. Three of the people involved, including her partner, have Long COVID.

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She said she relies on the data in her everyday life to understand her risk as does her partner, who is especially vulnerable to COVID infections.

“I am a really regular user of the wastewater treatment data. My partner has Long COVID and he was really seriously impacted. He has a permanent heart condition caused by COVID-19.

“What we know about Long COVID is if you get another infection, your Long COVID can be even more severe,” she said. “To shut down such an extensive program is just devastating.”

Their petition has more than 2,400 signatures.

In Waterloo, meanwhile, Ryan Tennant, who is working on a Phd in systems design engineering, recently pleaded with his local municipality to keep its wastewater surveillance program, something he relies on as caregiver for his elderly grandmother.

“A lot of people depend on understanding what is happening week to week so they can make a decision about risk.” He said he told a meeting of the regional municipality that it needs to “figure out a solution before the program ends so we weren’t left in a situation where we didn’t know what was going on.”

Waterloo region issued its final wastewater surveillance update last week.

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