Scientist’s ‘huge moral obligation’ as COVID-19 gripped the world

The winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science has described how he took the release of the COVID-19 sequence into his own hands.
Professor Eddie Holmes was the first person in the world to release the genome sequence of the virus, which lead to the creation of the COVID vaccine.
Professor Holmes told Deborah Knight he felt a “huge moral obligation” to release it amid the delay of governments.
“I was pushing to get it out earlier in fact.
“We knew what the virus was 40 hours after the samples arriving.
“It took two years to find out HIV caused AIDS, 40 hours to work this out.”
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Image: Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources