Search for Qld truckies who visited Crossroads Hotel
The race is on to find Queensland truckies and travellers who may have been exposed to COVID-19 while passing through a popular NSW pub as human vaccine trials start in Brisbane.
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Health authorities are urgently trying to locate Queensland truckies who stopped at a NSW pub at the centre of the latest COVID-19 outbreak, as the first human trials for a vaccine get underway in Brisbane.
The movements of hundreds of people are being traced after staff and patrons of the Crossroads Hotel at Casula in Sydney’s south west, tested positive.
It comes as Queensland recorded a single case of coronavirus in the 24 hours to Monday morning.
A Sunshine Coast woman in her 30s who had recently returned from the United States is the latest person to contract the virus, taking the total number of cases to 1071, four of which remain active.
She is currently in hotel quarantine.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said the unfolding situation at the NSW pub was of most concern.
“It is a stopping point for people travelling along the highway, especially truckies,” he said.
Mr Miles said Department of Transport and Main Roads staff on Sunday alerted trucking networks across the state of the cluster, while police are stopping people at the border.
“Anyone who has been to the Crossroads Hotel between the third and the 10th of July should go and get tested,” he said.
“This is a very large contact tracing exercise, probably one of the largest undertaken here in Australia.”
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Meanwhile 120 volunteers from across Brisbane on Monday received the first dose of the University of Queensland’s trial COVID-19 vaccine.
Innovation Minister Kate Jones said more than 4000 people had offered to take part in the study.
“We asked Queenslanders to roll up their sleeves to save lives and they’ve answered the call in droves,” she said.
UQ Professor Paul Young said while there was no guarantee the trial would work, it was a promising step forward, with preliminary results expected in three months.
“The green light to move into this human trial follows extensive pre-clinical testing that the team has been conducting since first selecting the lead vaccine candidate on 14 February,” he said.
“This testing showed that the vaccine was effective in the lab in neutralising the virus and safe to give to humans.”
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UQ has also entered into a partnership with CSL to ensure any vaccine developed in Queensland will be developed and manufactured locally.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was “another win for Queensland and Australia”.