Nurses take vaccine doses out of a bottle while Maryland residents receive their second dose of Modern Coronavirus Vaccine at the Cameron Grove Community Center on March 25, 2021 in Bowie, Maryland.
McNamee wins | Getty Images
A new study supported by the National Institutes of Health aims to help doctors and public officials find out what people can and cannot do after being vaccinated against coronavirus, including whether they will still have to wear masks and practice social distancing.
The study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH, will test the ability of the Modern Covid-19 vaccine to prevent coronavirus infection, limit the amount of virus in the nose and reduce the transmission of inoculated persons to close contacts.
“We hope that in the next five months or so we will be able to answer the very important question of whether vaccinated people become asymptomatically infected and, if they do, transmit the infection to other people,” said the chief medical adviser. White House. Anthony Fauci said Friday at a press conference.
The controlled, randomized study will follow 12,000 college students ages 18 to 26 at more than 20 U.S. universities for five months. Preliminary study sites opened Thursday.
Study participants will be randomly divided into two groups. Six thousand students will be vaccinated immediately with the Moderna two-shot vaccine distributed 28 days apart. Six thousand will be vaccinated four months later as an initial control group.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first guide for people who have been fully inoculated against Covid-19 on March 8th. According to the CDC, fully vaccinated people can safely visit other fully vaccinated people and some unvaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or social distancing.