World News for Students of English

01-10-2020 07:00

Bonnie Blue is Chicago, USA’s first COVID-19 vaccine participant and one of more than 25,000 people who volunteered for the Moderna vaccine trial.

It is a blind study where participants do not know if they are getting a COVID-19 vaccine or a placebo.

Blue is a 68-year-old asthmatic Black woman, and she fits into three high-risk categories for COVID-19. She received her second and final injection, and for the next two years, researchers will study her body’s reaction to the injections and if she is protected from COVID-19.

Blue gets about a $1,300 dollar stipend to cover travel and her time for the two years. She says that her friends were concerned about her severe health problems. However, she is convinced that she is doing the right thing, and that she is helping humanity.

Difficult words: blind study (a type of study in which the patients and sometimes even their doctors do not know which drug or treatment is being given), placebo (a substance that is used as a control in testing new drugs, and it has no therapeutic effect), injection (medicine given to someone through a syringe or a shot), stipend (some money for work).

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