Omicron hasn't been detected in Saskatoon's wastewater - but next week will be 'really important'

University of Saskatchewan researchers are now able to detect traces of the Omicron variant in the city's wastewater.

"We haven't seen it in any of the wastewater samples we've had yet. But we anticipate that we will see it probably if not this week, within a couple of weeks," said Kerry McPhedran, an associate professor in environmental engineering.

Five cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Saskatchewan. The dominant strain continues to be Delta - for now. McPhedran said Omicron appears to be more transmissible even in people who have been vaccinated, with cases doubling within about three days, which is faster than Delta spread.

"Hopefully over the holidays Omicron doesn't make much of a bother in our province. I guess we'll see. I wish we could predict the future, but we can predict about five or seven days out so we'll have to see the next amount," he said.

"The next week or two data from Omicron are going to be really important for people to see where it's going to go. And that's when we have more of an idea of if it is going up truly or if it is going to be another small peak that's coming up again."

The researchers update their public dashboard every Monday. McPhedran said they hope people use the data to inform their decisions, such as going away for the weekend, or going shopping, and maybe try to stay a little safer if the values are going up.

"And that's that was the goal of having the dashboard. We didn't want to just be collecting this data in the background and not having it available for people. "

The team also shares its data with the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

When the project started, it was more difficult to test for new variants - but now systems around the world are much faster. Testing protocols for Omicron were in development shortly after it was detected, he said.

"So our reaction times are much faster now. And that's ideal going forward with any viruses after the pandemic. We should be able to detect these things much quicker," McPhedran said.

"We just need to look for a specific variant - we have a marker and it looks different and that means it has a mutation that we're looking for, and that's how we're able to find it."

He said the eventual goal is to for technology to develop to the point where wastewater testing can be provided in any municipal lab, not just the biosafety level 2 lab in which he works.