People in the Batemans Bay area are being urged to come forward for testing if they have any symptoms after fragments of the virus that causes COVID-19 were detected at the sewage treatment plant.
“The presence of the virus in sewage may reflect the presence of people who have recovered from COVID-19 such as people released from hotel isolation returning to their place of residence,” NSW Health said in a statement.
“However, NSW Health is concerned there could be other active cases in the local community in people who have not been tested and who might incorrectly assume their symptoms are just a cold.”
– UQ gives up on vaccine hopes
UQ vaccine co-lead, Professor Paul Young, said that although it was possible to re-engineer their vaccine, there would be little point at this stage in the pandemic.
“Doing so would set back development by another 12 or so months, and while this is a tough decision to take, the urgent need for a vaccine has to be everyone’s priority,” he said.
“I said at the start of vaccine development that there were no guarantees, but what is really encouraging is that the core technology approach we used has passed the major clinical test.
“It is a safe and well-tolerated vaccine, producing the strong virus-neutralising effect that we were hoping to see.”
