Grainne Ducat, Sarah Morris and Belinda Chapman at the Wauchope pop-up drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic.
Wauchope Sewage Detection
Sep 03, 2021View the latest updates.
Mid North Coast Local Health District is urging locals with even the mildest of symptoms to get tested for COVID-19 following the detection of fragments of the virus in sewage samples taken from the Wauchope sewage treatment plant on 1 September 2021.
The Wauchope Sewage treatment plant serves around 8,000 residents of Wauchope, Crosslands, Beechwood and Timbertown in the Port Macquarie-Hastings Local Government Area.
A pop-up drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic opened at 1pm today (3 September) at the Wauchope Showground. Entry is via Beechwood Road. The drive-through testing clinic will be open this Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 4pm.
There are no new confirmed cases of COVID-19 anywhere in the Mid North Coast Local Health District and there have been no further sewage detections at any other Mid North Coast testing sites.
Testing sewage can help provide early warning of undetected infections in an area. In this instance, where there are no known cases of COVID-19 this is of particular concern.
Detection of virus fragments in sewage can also be due to shedding of the virus by someone who may have previously had the illness and may no longer be infectious or has visited the community and has since left the area.
A list of the latest sewage detections in NSW is available on the NSW Government website and more information about the NSW Sewage Surveillance Program is available on the NSW Health website.