Do Coronavirus Vaccines Prevent Spread? CU Students Join Study

BOULDER, CO — The University of Colorado Boulder joined 20 other universities in a federally funded study that aims to answer an important question in the fight against COVID-19: Does the Moderna shot prevent people from spreading the virus?

Around 700 CU Boulder students are among 12,000 who are participating in the study, which is expected to take five months, the university said.

Although only the Moderna vaccine will be used in the trial, the results will apply "equally well" to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which uses a similar technology, researchers said.

CU Boulder senior Olivia Parsons was the first participant to receive the Moderna vaccine in the study.

“Honestly, I felt like it was my civic duty to participate,” Parsons said. "It's an honor."

The study, 'PreventCOVIDU,' is led by the COVID-19 Prevention Network at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

The trial will help to determine whether a person can become infected after they’ve been vaccinated and whether the vaccine will stop the virus from spreading from person-to-person.

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Researchers will vaccinate half the students right away, and then vaccinate the other half four months later. Volunteers will then be asked to swab their nose every day, get tested twice weekly and complete daily questionnaires about symptoms via an app on their phone. They’ll also have their blood drawn periodically, researchers said.

Around 25,500 close contacts of the participants will be tracked nationwide, the study's leaders said.

A report on the results is expected before the fall, researchers said.

The trial is funded by the federal COVID-19 Response Program and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.