Joshua Schupp-Star getting vaccinated Joshua Schupp-Star can give you many reasons why he volunteered to join the clinical trial of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine at the University of Vermont s Vaccine Testing Center. All can be summarized in one word: hope. After receiving my first dose, I got a taste of the freedom that existed before the pandemic, said Schupp-Star, who is among the 284 volunteers in Vermont to receive an as-yet-unapproved vaccine made by British-Swedish drug manufacturer AstraZeneca. It s such a liberating feeling to walk around in the community knowing that my body had some protection against the virus that has caused so much suffering in the world.