Respiratory viruses: Wastewater monitoring dashboard : COVID-19 variants

As the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to change, it can produce new variants that change its clinical characteristics. These changes may increase the virus’s ability to:

• spread between people
• cause more severe disease, or
• limit your immune system’s ability to protect you, even if you’re vaccinated

Normally, variant monitoring depends on clinical tests and sequencing samples from people who are infected with the virus. However, this method can only identify variants in people with symptoms who have been tested. It may miss people without symptoms or those with limited access to healthcare and testing. This can lead to gaps in our understanding of the viral activity in a community. Wastewater monitoring helps with these challenges by showing us which variants are present in the sewage and may be spreading.

For information about variants, please see Variants in Canada.

For information on how Canada defines COVID-19 variants please see National definitions, designations and public health actions.

Recent variants

This graphic shows the percentage mix of variants detected in community wastewater over the last 10 weeks. Each week is represented by a bar. The most dominant variant in each week has the largest block of that week’s bar. The numbers for each variant are provided in the table below the graphic.

We update this information biweekly on Fridays at noon Eastern Time. In the event of a holiday, we update on the next business day. Data from the most recent weeks may be incomplete, due to the time it takes to transport and analyze samples. This report was last updated on November XX, 2023 with data up to and including November XX, 2023.

Figure 1. Weekly variant breakdown in wastewater download weekly variant breakdown data in .csv format

You can see the numbers for each date by hovering over, tabbing to, or long-pressing any of the bars. To see a specific variant or variant grouping, click or press return. Repeat to restore the complete graph. Click on the name of the variant in the legend to reveal or hide any descendants or offshoots.

Notes

• This information is based on sewage samples submitted for testing to the National Microbiology Laboratory. The results shown are for samples submitted over the most recent 10-week period.
• The National Microbiology Laboratory conducts wastewater genomic sequencing for a number of sites across Canada, with partner laboratories conducting testing for other sites. Data from Edmonton (AB), Halifax (NS), North Battleford (SK), Montreal (QC), Regina(SK), Saskatoon (SK), St. John’s (NL), Toronto (ON), Vancouver (BC), and Winnipeg (MB) are included on this dashboard. Site selection and the decision to publish results on the dashboard is always at the discretion of provinces, territories, and municipalities.
• * Includes all descendant variants, unless otherwise specified.

Figure 1: Text description

Percentage of COVID-19 cases identified through whole genome sequencing, presented by variant and by week of sample collection.

Variant Grouping	Variant

Notes:

• This information is based on sewage samples submitted for testing to the National Microbiology Laboratory. The results shown are for samples submitted over the most recent 10-week period.
• The National Microbiology Laboratory conducts wastewater genomic sequencing for a number of sites across Canada, with partner laboratories conducting testing for other sites. Data from Edmonton (AB), Halifax (NS), North Battleford (SK), Montreal (QC), Regina(SK), Saskatoon (SK), St. John’s (NL), Toronto (ON), Vancouver (BC), and Winnipeg (MB) are included on this dashboard. Site selection and the decision to publish results on the dashboard is always at the discretion of provinces, territories, and municipalities.
• * Includes all descendant variants, unless otherwise specified.