Confirmation Of COVID-19 Vaccine Begins As US Researchers Gives The First Shot

The government of the United States has today tested an experimental coronavirus vaccine on a volunteer in Seattle at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute.

Scientists at the research unit have been working day and night to come up with a vaccine for the virus which has so far claimed over 6,500 lives worldwide.

“We’re team coronavirus now,” Kaiser Permanente study leader Dr. Lisa Jackson says.

The volunteer, Jennifer Haller, 43, of Seattle is a mother of two kids who she says “think it’s cool” that she decided to take part in the study.

Jennifer, an operations manager at a small tech company, was the first to receive the injection. Several others were next in line for a test that will ultimately give 45 volunteers two doses, a month apart.

“We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something,” she says.

should the vaccine work, It wouldn’t be available for widespread use for 12 to 18 months, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

This vaccine code-named mRNA-1273, which was developed by the NIH and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc puts the volunteers at no chance of getting infected from the shots because they don’t contain the coronavirus itself.

Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study — in the U.S., China, and South Korea — next month.