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Ontario is officially ending its COVID-19 wastewater monitoring program today, a move that some public health experts are calling shortsighted.
Dr. Fahad Razak, former scientific director of the COVID-19 Ontario Science Table, says the province’s decision is “extremely disappointing.”
According to Razak, wastewater testing can provide an early indication of the emergence of COVID-19 and other viruses.
He said wastewater monitoring in dozens of Ontario communities was useful not only for detecting COVID, but also for monitoring potential threats, including the possible arrival of H5N1 bird flu.
Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment said in an email Tuesday that it is “winding down” its program as the Public Health Agency of Canada expands its wastewater monitoring sites in the province.
But a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada says it plans to test in only four Ontario cities, in addition to the four existing sites in Toronto, so it is not a duplicate of the provincial program.
“The size of the expansion does not replace the current size of the program in Ontario,” Anna Maddison said in an email Tuesday evening.
“Ontario’s decision not to continue the wastewater testing program was inconsistent with PHAC’s decision to expand the wastewater monitoring program.”
Additional federal wastewater testing to begin this fall
Maddison said additional federal wastewater monitoring is expected to begin before flu season this fall.
The provincial government “will work with the federal government and propose sampling locations that will provide quality data for public health across the province,” Alex Catherwood, spokesperson for Ontario’s Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks, said in the emailed statement.
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones defended the province’s decision to end the program.
“We have returned to what has been the case in Ontario for decades, which is a federal government assessing wastewater and working with our public health services and our clinicians to make sure that the information that comes in is disseminated to public health services across Ontario,” Jones said Wednesday.
“During the height of the pandemic, we saw an increase as there was a need for additional COVID wastewater testing. Now we are returning to what I would call normalcy,” she added.
WATCH | Ontario Health Minister on the province’s decision:
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the province tightened wastewater controls during the COVID-19 pandemic, but things are now back to normal.
Razak, an epidemiologist and internist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, says many communities don’t have the virus monitoring they need right now.
“[Wastewater surveillance] provides information quickly enough to take action. So knowing that there are a lot of COVID cases in the hospital, in many ways it is too late to take action,” he said.
“We now know that the signal from wastewater – not just for COVID, but also for RSV, for example – provides an early warning system when the disease emerges, giving individuals enough time to change their decision-making or [for] “Public health services or officials must respond.”
According to Razak, wastewater testing sites covered nearly three-quarters of Ontario’s population by 2023. Targeted monitoring of COVID-19 levels was also conducted in high-risk settings, such as nursing homes or homeless shelters.
“To me, this is a major equity issue,” he said. “This is moving in exactly the opposite direction of what we want in the best public health programs.”
Removal of provincial program ‘concerns’: doctor
Dr. Andrew Pinto, a family physician and public health specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital, agreed that the elimination of the provincial wastewater testing program is “concerning.”
“We are really seeing a cutback in investments in pandemic preparedness,” Pinto said.
“The question we should all be asking ourselves is, ‘If a new threat were to emerge in October or this fall, would we be ready? And what have we scaled back that we would have to reintroduce that we lost?'”
The doctors’ concerns were echoed by Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who said her party has “repeatedly” called on Premier Doug Ford’s government to reverse its decision.
WATCH | How wastewater testing helps detect infectious diseases:
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown scientists how useful wastewater can be in detecting infectious diseases. Now it is also being used to identify other outbreaks, such as monkeypox and polio.
“We have all been through a difficult time with COVID-19 and the impacts of a pandemic and lockdown. Reliable wastewater testing is one of the tools we have at our disposal to monitor and prepare for future public health emergencies. Why take that away?” Stiles said in a statement Wednesday.
“Has Ford learned nothing from the past few years? This program needs to be expanded, not ended.”
