Imagine, if you will, a system of disease surveillance that doesn’t rely on expensive and painful tests. It does not require us to get swabs stuck up our noses, needles poked into our arms, or even to answer banal questions about symptoms. Instead, this system asks us to go about our regular day, sleeping, waking, eating, and…. defecating… exactly as we would normally. In this system, heroic nerds—out of sight and out of mind—scoop and test samples of sewage in order to tell us whether disease rates are either concerning or tolerable.

Now imagine that shortsighted policymakers decide to defund such a surveillance system, just as its worth and pioneering quality are being celebrated worldwide.

Dr Raywat Deonandan, When The Poop Hits The Fan — Ontario wastewater testing needs to be expanded, not stripped back, Canada Healthwatch

Of course, you don’t have to imagine it, because that’s exactly what’s happening in the Province of Ontario. Dr. Deonandan’s short article linked does a great job of explaining why this is bad; the key points being:

• It’s really the only metric we have left for informing the public about current infection risk
• Vulnerable individuals require such information to determine what activities they can do when
• It’s a useful source for ongoing scientific research into various infectious diseases and conditions
• It can serve as an early warning system of new threats

The Ontario government points out that the Federal government is planning to expand its wastewater system in Ontario, suggesting that means that the provincial system is no longer needed. Problem is, all evidence suggests that the Federal system will be a poor cousin to what is in place now:

• Far fewer sites (59 now, down to maybe 8)
• Much slower release of information
• No direct ties to hospitals, universities, and public health units
• Less informative: fewer diseases covered, weaker data analysis

Let’s do a chart comparison. In Winter 2023, Ontario experienced the second biggest Covid wave ever. In Spring 2023, Ontario Covid rates dropped to the lowest level of the Omicron era. Which government agency’s wastewater data conveyed this information most clearly?

The Federal government’s?

Or the Ontario government’s (GTA = Greater Toronto area)?

My response

As I still (quite unfashionably) feel that Covid is a disease best avoided, I still (even more unfashionably) make some efforts to avoid catching it. This has included periodically checking these charts to assess how much vigilance is currently warranted.

I’m not really sure what I’ll do without that option. Just give up? (I don’t think I can just give up.) Stay at highest alert levels always? (I don’t think I can do that, either.)

It seems very unfair for government / public health to say “Make your own risk assessment!”, then remove any way doing that. So, I have tried to both raise public awareness about this, and contacted various levels of government to complain.

Action	Result
Emailed CBC KW (the region’s most popular morning radio station) to ask them to cover the story.	They did a story on it the following week. And they emailed me back to thank me for suggesting it and for giving them a lead on who to interview for it.
Emailed the Big Story podcast to ask them to cover the story.	No response and they haven’t covered the story.
Wrote a letter to the editor in the Waterloo Region Record (the local paper).	They published it.
Wrote to complain to the Premier, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of the Environment of Ontario.	The Ministry of the Environment emailed back saying to not worry my pretty little head about it, that they’re working with the Federal government to keep something going. (I might be paraphrasing.)
Wrote to my MPP, who is an Opposition member.	She wrote back saying she agreed it was a terrible decision, and encouraged me to also complain to the government. (Her party has also spoken out against this decision.)
Wrote to some Waterloo Regional Council members, suggesting that they should lobby the Ontario government to not cancel the program.	Did not hear back a thing from any of them. However, at one of their subsequent meetings, they did agree to contact the Federal government to try to get them to keep the program going.
Wrote to MPPs in the region who belong to the governing party to point out that it appeared that other cities were going to get some wastewater monitoring, but Waterloo wasn’t, and that wasn’t fair, since we pay as much as taxes as they do (that’s me trying to speak Conservative).	TBD, because I just did that.

What you can do

Various sites make it pretty fast and easy to write your own letter of complaint (thanks to John Dupuis for compiling)…

• Safe Care Ontario: Email template you can copy (and adapt, if you’re ambitious) and a list of the email addresses to send it to you. (Also material for other valuable campaigns you can join in on, should you be even more ambitious.)
• Still COVIDing Canada: Handy-dandy mailto: links for key provicial politicians, and another email template. Bonus: email template and contact information for municipal politicians in Waterloo (hey, that’s my town!) and Ottawa.
• Wastewater Advocacy Resources: Google Drive with contact information, email script, phone script, and social media post suggestions.

And I dare say that even you don’t live in Ontario, don’t let that stop you! (Though you might want to adapt the email wording…) The data is serving international research purposes; as with this article in the scientific Nature journal: SARS-CoV-2 viral titer measurements in Ontario, Canada wastewaters throughout the COVID-19 pandemic:

When integrated with other types of epidemiological data, WBS can contribute to a more holistic understanding of disease incidence at both the provincial and national levels in Canada. The extensive dataset and comprehensive methodology outlined in this manuscript, which includes specific normalization techniques, is not only instrumental in improving the current understanding of SARS-CoV-2 WBS but also holds promise for helping public health units and researchers make better predictions for future outbreaks of similar viral diseases. This set of protocols can be adapted by other research institutions or public health agencies interested in employing WBS.