Orange's raw sewage tested for traces of COVID virus

The NSW Sewage Surveillance Program tests untreated sewage for fragments of the COVID virus at sewage treatment plants across NSW.

Testing sewage can help to track infections in the community and provide early warning of an increase in infections.

The tests provide data to support NSW Health's response to the pandemic.

"An infected person can shed virus in their faeces even if they do not have any symptoms, and shedding can continue for several weeks after they are no longer infectious," said a Western NSW Local Health District spokesperson.

The NSW sewage surveillance for COVID is in the "preliminary stages of analysis and work is progressing to assess the significance of the results".

There have been many detections that would be expected for a range of reasons, including the presence of recent cases in the catchment area.

"On four occasions the sewage surveillance program has detected remnants of COVID-19 in locations where there were no known recent cases of COVID-19 at the time," said the spokesperson.

"These locations were the Snowy Mountains, West Camden, North Richmond and Bathurst.

"Following the detections, NSW Health issued alerts to these communities, urging anyone with COVID symptoms to get tested."

On October 21 NSW Health advised of "remnants of the COVID-19 virus" being detected in Bathurst's raw sewage.

It asked people who attended the Bathurst 1000 motor race the previous weekend and residents of the city with respiratory symptoms to get tested for COVID-19 immediately.

"Anyone with even the mildest of symptoms like a runny nose or scratchy throat, cough, fever or other symptoms that could signal COVID must get a test," the spokesperson said.

"This is vital to ensuring NSW continues to detect cases as soon as possible and prevent onward transmission."

There were long queues but no positive test results.

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