Covid-19 Vaccine Trials in US Underway in Biggest Test to Date

WASHINGTON, KOMPAS.com – Around 30,000 Americans rolled up their sleeves on Monday to receive an experimental Covid-19 vaccine in one of the biggest tests to curing the novel virus.

The Covid-19 vaccine was made by the US government in a global effort to stomp out the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement of the Covid-19 vaccine trials was made shortly after tech giant Google announced that 200,000 of its employees and contractors should work from home until June 2021.

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The move is one of the gloomiest assessments of the Covid-19’s staying power from a major employer. Google’s decision could influence other large-scale companies.

Final-stage testing of the vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., began with volunteers at numerous sites around the US given either a real dose or a dummy without being told which.

“I’m excited to be part of something like this. This is huge,” said Melissa Harting, a 36-year-old nurse who received an injection in Binghamton, New York.

Especially with family members in frontline jobs that could expose them to the virus, she added, “doing our part to eradicate it is very important to me.”

Another company, Pfizer Inc., announced late Monday that it had started its own study of its vaccine candidate in the US and elsewhere. That study also aimed to recruit 30,000 people.

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It will be months before results trickle in, and there is no guarantee the vaccines will ultimately work against the scourge that has killed over 650,000 people around the world, including almost 150,000 in the US.

“We’ve been sitting on the sidelines passively attempting to wear our masks and social distance and not go out when it’s not necessary. This is the first step of becoming active against this,” said Dr. Frank Eder of Meridian Clinical Research, the company that runs the Binghamton trial site.

“There’s really no other way to get past this," stated Dr. Frank.

As if to underline how high the stakes are, there were more setbacks in efforts to contain the coronavirus.

In Washington, the Trump administration disclosed that national security adviser Robert O’Brien has the virus — the highest-ranking US official to test positive so far.