Read more: N.B. company helps study wastewater for COVID-19, mpox at Toronto Pearson airport Read next: Part of the Sun breaks free and forms a strange vortex, baffling scientists He says there are now more than two dozen subvariants of the virus being located in the wastewater.“In recent months, it’s become increasingly difficult to detect new variants in wastewater, because at any given time, we are finding evidence of 20 or 25 subvariants,” he stated in a release from the school.The researchers don’t actually test for subvariants but are looking for mutations of subvariants such as the “Kraken” XBB.1.5 through genomic sequencing.In addition, a few weeks ago, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced that the project was expanding to conduct separate testing of the wastewater from flights arriving from China and Hong Kong.What makes it tough is attempting to find the specific new variants of concern as they wade through all of the different subvariants.“If you think about it as a puzzle, it used to be just a 10-piece puzzle.
Now, it’s 1,000 pieces and most of those pieces look the same, because they are all Omicron.” he said.“On top of that, it’s been mixed up with 10 other jigsaw puzzles and those pieces also look the same.
So, we’re looking for these unique pieces and we are running into pieces from other puzzles that aren’t important.” Read more: COVID-19 research is going down the toilet in Guelph to prevent an outbreak Read next: Exclusive: Widow’s 911 call before James Smith Cree Nation murders reveals prior violence Goodridge told Global News that the research is being conducted in an effort to show the value of wastewater testing“Currently we are just looking for SARS-CoV-2,” he said in an email..