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Students At Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State Will Take Part In COVID-19 Vaccine Study

AP Photo/Gerry Broome

Two Triad universities will take part in a clinical trial focusing on COVID-19 vaccines and transmission of the virus among college students. 

The study will include students from Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State University.

The goal is to see if someone can still get COVID-19 after being given both doses of the Moderna vaccine. It will also look at whether the vaccine prevents person-to-person spread of the virus.

The trial is being launched by the COVID-19 Prevention Network, which is headquartered at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

In the study, half of the participating students will be given the vaccine right away, while the other half will get their shots four months later. Close contacts of the participants will also be invited to take part.

Dr. Elizabeth Brown, who helped design the trial, says in a news release, “College campuses are model settings for studying transmission of infection, given that they are relatively closed populations.”

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will also be participating in the trial.

For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you're experiencing.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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