Initial trial of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine began one year ago
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Updated: 5:57 AM EDT Mar 16, 2021
Initial trial of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine began one year ago
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Updated: 5:57 AM EDT Mar 16, 2021
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TRACKING THE COVID-19 VACCINE
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Updated: 5:57 AM EDT Mar 16, 2021
One year ago, on the same day that Massachusetts schools were ordered to close because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a local company began the first phase of testing a coronavirus vaccine.The vaccine from Cambridge-based Moderna was given to the first of 45 participants in the Phase 1 trial on March 16, 2020. The testing that would ultimately lead to authorization of the vaccine began with a careful jab at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle.The first patient was Jennifer Haller, a mother of two. “We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something,” she said at the time.The vaccine was created based on the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus, which was shared by the Chinese government. Moderna said its scientists worked with investigators from the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to identify the messenger RNA vaccine. At the time of the first injection, Massachusetts health officials had identified fewer than 200 cases of the virus. One year later, the total is now more than 560,000. Moderna's two-dose COVID-19 vaccine was granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 18, one week after the agency authorized a similar vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.A third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson and also known as the Janssen vaccine, was authorized on Feb. 27. Vaccination progress in Massachusetts: