Inside a Vaccine Clinical Trial

get sick and die. The president said at an event in Arizona that he knows restarting state economies will cause more illness and death from the pandemic, but insists it's a cost he's willing to pay to get the economy back on track. As governors across the South and Midwest have begun returning people to work, Trump said he's pivoting to phase two of the nation's response to the pandemic.

Phase two originally included disbanding the White House Coronavirus Task Force, something the White House said in statements Tuesday it was considering doing, but today Trump reversed himself, saying the task force will continue indefinitely. In a series of tweets this morning, the President said the task force will continue with a focus on reopening the country, as well as the development

of vaccines and therapeutic treatments. Des Trump's desire to hasten the end of lockdown rules and analysis by Bloomberg News found that many states are doing so before they're ready, even by Trump's own standards. Twenty states that have already lifted restrictions don't meet the guidelines for reopening that were

set out by the White House last month. Many are moving ahead with reopening businesses despite not having declining cases, a declining percentage of positive tests, or hospital systems that can withstand the strain of an outbreak. The UK is likely to start easing it's coronavirus lockdown starting Monday, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson promised to announce details

this weekend. Johnson said he will set out the next phase of the coronavirus strategy in a public statement on Sunday, because it would be a good thing if people know what to expect before they changes come into operation the next day and now our main story, dozens of research teams across the world are racing to deliver a vaccine for the coronavirus. People around the world are closely watching the race because they see a vaccine as the key

to allowing the world to return to something like normal. Developing, testing, and bringing a vaccine to market is a process that usually takes years, even decades, but that process is being ramped up to superspeed as the virus ravages the globe. Some have promised we may see something as soon as the end of this year. Most medical experts believe that's highly unlikely, but the races on a small group of volunteers. It's already receiving an experimental vaccine. Jason Gale spoke to

one of the first to get a dose. He gives us a peek inside the fast moving world of coronavirus vaccine development. When the University of Oxford recently sought volunteers to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine, thousands signed up. Another Australian was one of the first two people to roll up their sleeve for the shot. I am Dr Edward O'Neill, a post doctoral researcher in the Department of Oncology at

the University of Oxford. Not a medical doctor, but a scientist, and I'm a trial participant of the COVID nineteen vaccine. It is thirty. He lives in Oxford, where he's doing post doctoral research on nuking cancer with radiation. He heard about the COVID nineteen vaccine study in an email from the Universe City. He discussed the risks with his wife and decided to give it a go. It turns out he was lucky to get in. I myself am one of over five thousand people who wanted to actually join

the study, so they actually had to stop enrollment. So it's not for lack of willing volunteers. Everyone wanted to be a part of this. It was an overwhelming vote of confidence in the experimental vaccine, but also in the track record of Oxford's Jenna Institute. The center was named after Edward Jenner, a pioneer of immunization. I think eighteenth century dairy maids and cow pox. Fast forward two years, and vaccines have come a long way since Jenner made

his inoculation against smallpox. I was familiar with the generous aitute because it was just was just fascinated to hear about what's going on and we would actually get lots of Facebook guards asking us to fox sign up for other trials as well. Um, it's common for them to actually the investigating other diseases because they haven't been primarily just working on the stars. The generous that you actually

had a number of vaccines was developing. These included a vaccine against malaria, but more important one to fight another coronavirus. It's the one that causes Mer's or Middle East respiratory syndrome. That virus made the leap from camels to humans several years ago and has infected about two and a half thousand people, mostly in the Middle East. It's lethal in about a third of cases, but isn't as easily transmitted

between people as the coronavirus that causes COVID nineteen. Importantly, Oxford's experimental MERS vaccine has already been tested in people. Oxford researchers reported in the lance At Medical Journal last month that the vaccine was safe, well tolerated, and that a single dose could elicit a broad protective immune response against the MERS virus. Ed says it's quaidest decision to participate in the COVID vaccine study because the two vaccines

are very similar. Um, I didn't think it was going to be um any particular risk because I was confident based upon the science. It's being based upon a known mers vaccine that I've already developed an already trial it. And I also thought would be really interesting experience to see the patient perspective on the clinical trials. And so at some point if you trial keen to have some of my research progress to a clinical trial, so I say, I wanted to see what that would be like as well.

So what was it like getting the JAB? Being a volunteer means that they firstly have to you have to meet the criteria just by an online questionnaire, and then they bring you in. If you meet the criteria that you're eligible for the study, and they want to do a full medical to make sure that you're it and healthy and also willing to take part. That you can travel to their for regular blood tears after the vaccination, and then they will call you up if you're eligible.

I only found out maybe like a week before the actual injection. It involves a lot of care, a lot of paperwork to make sure that they have healthy volunteers first, and then the end goal is to actually then enroll older people, but first we have to figure out what works and healthy young people to then figure out if older people can also create an immunity using the vaccine that is sufficient to protect them as well. So that's there the most vulnerable groups, so we're targeting that will

the end goal. It has no idea whether he was randomly selected to receive the candidate COVID vaccine or a control shot that protects against manager cockal disease. The study will look to see whether COVID was less common in participants who got the experimental shot versus the control I mean, there's the chance that I have the coronavirus that could easily have got the control vaccine, but I feel perfectly fine.

But it's more important that I mean, i'm I'm I'm only one person as well that this trial has expanded to many, many people, and so now they're giving daily temperature checks and daily symptoms sort of diary that's uploaded every evening so that the study can know what's happening

with all the patients. The sad fact is is that there's an outbreak and that's quite prevalent in the uk UM and I think that Unfortunately, it's going to be statistically likely that that's what they're counting on, that members of the study will get infected, and hopefully it will be the control group that actually have symptoms versus the the Canada group. It says gauging the effect means a lot of blood tests, so they are very interested in

a scientific analysis of the vaccine. They don't just give you a shot and then send you off in the world. They want to follow how your body is responding to it. If all goes as planned, research is running the trial so they'll have preliminary data to tell if it works by September. Regardless, productions ramping up on the assumption that it will work, so they'll have enough vaccine to use

in a larger clinical study. At least a half a dozen vaccine candidates have entered human studies, including an experimental shop being developed by the National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts based Maderna That trial started in March. Vaccine research is being accelerated, but it says he sees no corners being cut. I have a fear that people might be concerned about the vaccine, that it's maybe being rushed. We know that there was one vaccine that's already injected in America.

But I know that this one has been as cautious and as quick as it possibly could. In the Oxford study had to do the animal trials non human primates before that was their design to be as cautious as possible, but as fast as possible. UM, So they had a headstart, it says he likes being part of the race to produce a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus. I think a vaccine is the safe this way to develop a herd immunity response that we can therefore protect our

friends and family and the people in the street. We don't even know. Um. What we've found with this coronavirus in particular compared to the Merse and the First Stars outbreak is that it was they were very intense diseases, but this one has a lot of unsybdematic carriers. It doesn't mean that it's not a nasty disease. It has terrible side effects and terrible effects that we're still learning about the long term effects. So I think vaccine is the safest way to have her community that we can

then introduce to the population. It's a goal that dozens of research teams across the world are pursuing well each is vine to be first. They're also competing with the fast spreading pandemic that each and every one of us has a stake in. Ending. Researchers say that solidarity is driving a global effort that's resulting in an unprecedented spirit of collaboration. That was Bloomberg's Jason Gail, and that's our

show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one D and twenty bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is hosted by Me Laura Carlson. The show was produced by Me Topher foreheads, Jordan Gospoure and Magnus Hendrickson. Today's main story was reported

by Jason Gail. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening.