Why this Brisbane woman is voluntarily giving herself coronavirus
A Brisbane woman is planning on giving herself coronavirus in the hope of potentially helping millions of people infected worldwide.
There are at least 260 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data, with more than 760,000 deaths.
But Sophie Rose, 22, hopes by being part of a human trial to help develop a vaccine she can make a difference.
Ms Rose is the co-founder of 1daysooner which aims to “rapidly accelerate” the deployment of COVID vaccine through trials.
The 22-year-old, who currently lives in London, told The Courier-Mail the benefits of the trial outweigh the risks and she’s more than willing to become infected.
“When I look at everything that’s going on in the world at the moment, we have economic destruction across multiple different countries, we have hundreds of thousands of people dying, other people are sick, none of this is to mention the consistent toll of people’s emotional well being whilst they’re working from home,” she told the paper.
“Any contribution that we can make that is of a reasonable risk to help people is what we should be doing.”
Ms Rose is studying at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Australia doesn’t currently have access to a coronavirus vaccine.
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Health Minister Greg Hunt told Sky News on Sunday he’s cautiously optimistic of obtaining a vaccine in 2021.
“We are in advanced negotiations with a range of different companies with regards to a vaccine,” Mr Hunt told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda.
“I am now on the basis of our best advice, genuinely more optimistic, I think the work is moving closer to a vaccine.”
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