COVID-19 vaccine trials show promising results at Emory
sites in the U.S. where the candidate vaccine has undergone trial runs since March.
Rouphael and a team of researchers led by the Seattle-based Kaiser Permanent Washington Health Research Institute now plan to conduct trials on hundreds more volunteers in Atlanta and across the country.
She urged people interested in volunteering for the trial’s next testing phase to sign up at https:// www.coronaviruspreventionnetwork.org/.
Rouphael also emphasized researchers need volunteers from populations hit hardest by the coronavirus including Black and Latino communities and elderly persons.
“It’s really important to make sure that all of us in the community sign up,” she said.
Unlike traditional vaccines that introduce disease-causing organisms, the vaccine being tested at Emory involves using genetic sequencing to create proteins that mimic the novel strain of coronavirus and trigger a response from the patient’s immune system to erect safeguards.
These so-called mRNA vaccines can be cheaper and faster to produce but are less tried- and- true than traditional vaccines, according to the nonprofit PHG Foundation at the University of Cambridge.
The potential coronavirus vaccine, called mRNA1273, was developed in roughly two months by the Massachusetts-based company Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which kicked off clinical trials in Seattle in March.
Gov. Brian Kemp renewed orders late Wednesday, July 15, to keep Georgia’s current social distancing and safety rules imposed through the end of July to discourage the spread of coronavirus in place for businesses, schools and public gatherings.
The latest executive order also contains new language requiring that any masking mandates put in place by city or county governments that go beyond the state’s voluntary measures “are suspended.”
That move could set up a legal battle between Kemp and local officials in Atlanta, Savannah, Athens and several other communities in Georgia where mask requirements were recently imposed.
The governor’s order arrived hours before a slate of COVID-19 restrictions were set to expire at Wednesday’s end, July 15. Kemp has executive authority to issue emergency orders through at least Aug. 11.
As of Wednesday afternoon, July 15, nearly 128,000 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 3,091 Georgians.
While a host of Georgia businesses have been allowed to reopen since May, they are still required by the governor’s orders to abide by several measures to keep people separated from each other, maintain clean surfaces and send workers home if they show symptoms of coronavirus.