In fact, disinfection and sterilization of medical wastewater is quite common, but large-scale disinfection is relatively rare. For instance, since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, large-scale disinfection work has emerged, including the disinfection of medical wastewater. So what kind of impact will this have on water quality?

This can be seen from the monitoring results of drinking water. Total residual chlorine has been detected in some water that has been disinfected on a large scale due to the epidemic. However, the standard for the content of total residual chlorine must be paid attention to to avoid total residual chlorine pollution in water bodies. During the epidemic, relevant departments have clearly defined two points:

1.First, the environmental quality of drinking water sources should be regarded as an important monitoring point, with a focus on real-time monitoring of indicators such as total residual chlorine in wastewater and coliform bacteria (real-time monitoring of coliform bacteria in water can be conducted using an Online Coliform Bacteria Analyzer).

2.For the monitoring mode of the automatic monitoring network, efforts should be made to minimize the impact on epidemic prevention and control stations and give full play to the online monitoring work of medical wastewater.

Would large-scale disinfection of medical wastewater have any impact on water quality? Early warning monitoring and analysis at automatic water quality monitoring stations in many places indicate that the water quality has declined. From the perspective of monitoring at drinking water sources, multiple monitoring sessions have been conducted on drinking water to ensure the safety of water quality. In addition, after disinfection, real-time monitoring of total residual chlorine is conducted to ensure that excessive chlorine disinfectant is added during the disinfection process, which could affect the water quality.