--- title: COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start description: A vaccine and a drug against COVID-19 are closer to human testing canonical: https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-02-25T21:37:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T08:18:40.054Z article:section: Health og:title: COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start og:description: A vaccine and a drug against COVID-19 are closer to human testing og:url: https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f2b0ed4b4abcb06/698a0aaa929fadfaeabf5bd9/GettyImages-1203771991.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6500 og:image:height: 3656 og:image:alt: Coronavirus 2019-nCoV spreading og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start twitter:description: A vaccine and a drug against COVID-19 are closer to human testing twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f2b0ed4b4abcb06/698a0aaa929fadfaeabf5bd9/GettyImages-1203771991.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start > Sponsored content. 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It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=1344ea47-34b4-4392-a83d-270048660820&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Daily | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 240,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 54.1% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Written by TIME's health desk | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership Health conscious and health connected. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2020 9:37 PM UTC  Microscopic illustration of the spreading 2019 corona virus that was discovered in Wuhan, China. The image is an artisic but scientific interpretation, with all relevant surface details of this particular virus in place, including Spike Glycoproteins, Hemagglutinin-esterase, E- and M-Proteins and Envelope. Microscopic illustration of the spreading 2019 corona virus that was discovered in Wuhan, China. The image is an artisic but scientific interpretation, with all relevant surface details of this particular virus in place, including Spike Glycoproteins, Hemagglutinin-esterase, E- and M-Proteins and Envelope.Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2020 9:37 PM UTC Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company based in Cambridge, Mass., has shipped the first batches of its COVID-19 vaccine. The [vaccine](https://time.com/5775784/coronavirus-vaccine-research/) was created just 42 days after the genetic sequence of the COVID-19 virus, called SARS-CoV-2, was released by Chinese researchers in mid-January. The [first vials were sent](https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-ships-mrna-vaccine-against-novel-coronavirus-mrna-1273) to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, which will ready the vaccine for human testing as early as April. NIH scientists [also began testing an antiviral drug](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-remdesivir-treat-covid-19-begins) called remdesivir that had been developed for Ebola, on a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2\. The trial is the first to test a drug for treating COVID-19, and will be led by a team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The first patient to volunteer for the ground-breaking study is a passenger who was brought back to the US after testing positive for the disease aboard the _Diamond Princess_. Others diagnosed with COVID-19 who have been hospitalized will also be part of the study. _Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking_[ _here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/coronavirus?source=article)_._ Remdesivir showed encouraging results among animals infected with two related coronaviruses, one responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and another for causing Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Volunteers will be randomly assigned to receive either the drug or a placebo intravenously for 10 days, and they will have blood tests and nose and throat swabs taken every two days to track the amount of virus in their bodies. Even if the drug shows some efficacy in keeping blood levels of SARS-CoV-2 from growing, it could help to contain spread of the infection. [Moderna’s vaccine](https://time.com/5775784/coronavirus-vaccine-research/) against COVID-19 was developed in record time because it’s based on a relatively new genetic method that does not require growing huge amounts of virus. Instead, the vaccine is packed with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins. Moderna loads its vaccine with mRNA that codes for the right coronavirus proteins which then get injected into the body. Immune cells in the lymph nodes can process that mRNA and start making the protein in just the right way for other immune cells to recognize and mark them for destruction. As Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, [told TIME](https://time.com/5775784/coronavirus-vaccine-research/) earlier this month, “mRNA is really like a software molecule in biology. So our vaccine is like the software program to the body, which then goes and makes the \[viral\] proteins that can generate an immune response.” That means that this vaccine method can be scaled up quickly, saving critical time when a new disease like COVID-19 emerges and starts infecting tens of thousands of people. _Please send any tips, leads, and stories to_ [_virus@time.com_](mailto:virus@time.com)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/"},"headline":"COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start","datePublished":"2020-02-25T21:37:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:18:40.054Z","description":"A vaccine and a drug against COVID-19 are closer to human testing","url":"https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/","keywords":["COVID-19","UnitedWeRise20Disaster"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f2b0ed4b4abcb06/698a0aaa929fadfaeabf5bd9/GettyImages-1203771991.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f2b0ed4b4abcb06/698a0aaa929fadfaeabf5bd9/GettyImages-1203771991.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Coronavirus 2019-nCoV spreading","caption":"Coronavirus 2019-nCoV spreading","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/","name":"COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped, and Drug Trials Start"}}]}] ```