The province has started testing sewage in the St. John’s metro region for the presence of COVID-19.
Officials expect the wastewater sampling to yield important information, such as how prevalent the virus is in the region.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says they’d like to expand the testing elsewhere but there are federal guidelines that would make the testing more difficult in some areas than others.
She says it’s not as simple as just entering an area and testing samples. Fitzgerald says there are protocols involved that can make it unfeasible, depending on the type of wastewater system in place.
Fitzgerald says staff were in the initial stages of their work at treatment plants when the UK variant struck.
She says that will likely skew early results, adding a longer period of testing is necessary to get a better gauge of the reach of the virus.