Could wastewater surveillance help track SARS-COV-2 community outbreaks? Since it was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative pathogen of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has infected over 73.37 million people and taken the lives of over 1.63 million worldwide. As 2020 draws to a close, various national regulatory bodies have given the go-ahead on the innovative new mRNA vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNTech – including the UK, Canada and the USA. In the UK, targeted vaccinations are already being administered to the elderly, the immunocompromised and frontline healthcare workers. While these are promising signs, the crisis is far from over. The complex logistics, financials and compliance-based issues of promoting herd immunity by vaccination at the national, not least global, level are yet to be fully ironed out.