Explainer: Wastewater
Credit: Yuji Sakai, Stone.
COVID-19 detections in wastewater have been making headlines for the past 12 months – including this week in Adelaide.
Prior to the pandemic, our wastewater was sampled and tested for a variety of reasons – including to monitor the environment, look for other viruses, and track illicit drugs. Those activities are all still happening, alongside COVID wastewater monitoring programs running across Australia, with detailed information available for NSW, Victoria, Queensland,South Australia, Western Australiaand the ACT.
So, with wastewater unlikely to leave the news anytime soon, it’s worth taking a look at how the testing is actually done.