This is encouraging. A clip from an NYT story:
[But] scientists at Oxford’s Jenner Institute had already proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against another coronavirus — were harmless to humans.
That has enabled them to leap ahead to the next step and schedule tests involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month, hoping to show that their vaccine not only is safe, but also works.
The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts — if it proves to be effective.
It is impossible to know at this stage whether any vaccine will work, or which will be the first to emerge as a success. But there is promising news about Oxford’s candidate.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. More than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test.
Edit: Shortly after the first human volunteer subject was given the vaccine, some nutcase on social media began circulating a false report that she'd died, which she refuted with a fairly cheerful twitter message.
