The National Microbiology Lab has sprung into action since the early days of the pandemic and delivered the first functional diagnostic test within five days of the sequence being published by Chinese collaborators. It has continued to work tirelessly to advance the science.
Some of our work has contributed directly to our understanding of the periods of infectivity in individuals who were infected with COVID-19, and during their recovery.
We have developed a national wastewater surveillance system that is able to provide early warnings of resurgence. We were sequencing, in May alone, 30,000 genomes to understand the threat posed by variants of concern. We continue to work on the advancement of a number of potential vaccine candidates should new technologies be needed to meet the threat posed by variants.
That's a broad overview, but we are proud of the work we've been doing.