Moderna Will Start Testing Its Covid-19 Vaccine on 30,000 People in July

[Steelrolled]

6. You ask a very good question.

My understanding is they tell volunteers to live their lives as they otherwise would, including taking precautions against infection. Of course, they "need" to see infections in the control group (and few or none in the test group) to prove the efficacy of the vaccine. If no one from either group gets infected, they won't have any good data.

There were reports from the UK that they worry about the infection rate dropping so quickly it will be hard to test the vaccine.

I have heard stories of volunteers who say they would be willing to be intentionally exposed (after getting the real vaccine) to speed up the trial, but I doubt these volunteers would be taken up on their offer.