Many states are reducing the amount of wastewater testing for COVID, but experts say losing interest altogether would be a mistake.
In the past, sewage testing for SARS-CoV-2 only detected the presence or absence of virus fragments, which is not very useful when the virus is everywhere in the community.
"The peak in wastewater typically precedes the peak in clinically determined infections by anywhere between five to 21 days — and on average, globally, it's 10 days.""We've detected some of the first Omicron variants that entered Australia from wastewater from aircraft, for example," Dr Bertsch said.
University of Queensland public health expert Linda Selvey works with Queensland Health and said it was "actually quite resource-intensive to do the surveillance".Dr Selvey said wastewater data would likely be used in Queensland to monitor trends in future. Sydney-based water, sanitation and hygiene consultant Daniel Deere is leading the development of the World Health Organisation's guidelines for environmental monitoring of COVID.
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