Thousands of residents in the New South Wales border zone are not being monitored via sewage testing for COVID-19 infections due to their use of home septic systems, the ABC has confirmed.
Key points:
- Residents in the far northern NSW city of Lismore have been removed from Queensland's border bubble
- Lismore Mayor Vanessa Ekins says COVID-19 wasn't detected in sewage testing because many residents use septic tanks
- The area has returned to lockdown
Queensland authorities have been relying on the highly sensitive COVID-19 fragment testing of the council sewage systems in border zone communities to provide an early warning of outbreaks and to help set border restrictions.
On Wednesday, a person tested positive in the NSW border zone city of Lismore, which had been steadily recording negative results from tests of three local sewage outlets in recent weeks.
The positive case triggered Queensland to remove Lismore from the border bubble and reinstate border zone restrictions with the local government area (LGA).
Thomas Mackenzie-Forbes
)As of 6:00pm last night, Lismore residents were officially shut out of Queensland.
At the same time, the Lismore council area was placed into lockdown in response to the positive case.
Septic tanks mean virus not detected
Lismore City Council Mayor Vanessa Ekins said yesterday sewage detection had probably failed because of the number of residents not connected to town sewage.
Bruce MacKenzie: ABC North Coast.
)Ms Ekins said it was estimated a quarter of the more than 40,000 residents in the Lismore LGA lived in households connected to septic systems.
"A large proportion of the Northern Rivers region are in rural areas on septic tanks so they are not connected to the reticulated system,'' she said.
She said the positive case was believed to a student who attended a school in Lismore.
The school services communities also have a very high proportion of septic systems, she said.
Ms Ekins said tests at the south and east Lismore as well as the Nimbin sewage systems had all been negative in the past few weeks.
COVID-19 fragment testing of sewage has been considered very accurate and capable of detecting one COVID-positive person from 10,000 people in sampling.
But the ABC revealed last month that testing of some of the border regions had been sporadic with some samples only being collected once a week while results from tests took more than two days to come back due to a need to transport them by road to a special laboratory in Sydney.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk took the opportunity yesterday to again stress the importance of getting vaccinated.
"These are our neighbours, the only way we protect ourselves from a major outbreak is to get vaccinated," she said.
Loading form...
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiamh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA5LTE3L3FsZC1jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1jb3ZpZC1uc3ctYm9yZGVyLXpvbmUtc2V3YWdlLXRlc3RpbmctZmFpbC8xMDA0NjM3MDbSAShodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTAwNDYzNzA2?oc=5
2021-09-16 19:39:17Z
52781884233713
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "COVID-19 going undetected in Queensland-NSW border zone sewage testing due to high number of septic tanks - ABC News"
Post a Comment