Original title: “WE DON”T KNOW WHAT THEY PUT IN US“: A family is testing a vaccine against the coronavirus
On 12.05.2020 the portal Ulica.mk published an article titled “WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY PUT IN US“: A family is testing a vaccine against the coronavirus which is an excellent example of what a clickbait looks like.
In this case the title of the text gives the impression that the family being tested did not know they were part of a study for testing and developing a coronavirus vaccine, and were allegedly unaware of what they had been injected.
While the title is confusing and vague, the content of the text clearly shows what it is about. Namely, the British family Viney, mother Katie, father Tony and their daughter Rhiannon agreed to volunteer in a study involving 1000 people and do not know which of them received a real vaccine, because half of the volunteers will receive a potential coronavirus vaccine, while the other half will get a placebo, a vaccine that protects against meningitis.
The content, as well as the title, with minor changes, are taken from the article They don’t know what was injected in them or how it works, but because of their daughter, they decided to apply: This is a family of volunteers who are being tested for the corona vaccine, published by “Novosti.rs” published on 11.05.2020, which is listed as the source of the text.
You can find the link to the original article here.
Testing of the vaccine, which the article is writing about, was conducted by the Oxford University and is carried out on volunteers who know how the testing process will go. The Viney family explains their experiences in the article Bicester family compare symptoms during coronavirus vaccine trial published on “oxfordmail.co.uk”. Their statements consist of explanations of how the test is performed, that it consists of two groups where one group is vaccinated with the coronavirus vaccine while the other with a placebo vaccine that has no effect on the coronavirus but is against meningitis and that the participating volunteers do not know which one of these two groups they belong to. The group receiving the meningitis vaccine is called the control group used to compare the effects and success of the coronavirus vaccine. This way of conducting scientific research is called a single-curtain study that serves to prevent participants from behaving differently and for measuring and to verify the placebo effect in the study if they are or are not part of the control or test group.
Oxford University currently has the most advanced research on coronavirus vaccine, reaching the testing stage of more than 6,000 vaccine prototype participants, which is part of the normal process of developing different types of vaccines and is expected to have a vaccine ready by September. Related to this research are articles published by the aforementioned portals.
A smaller number of participants have been tested in Seattle, Washington at the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Coronavirus Vaccine, and recently Australia’s Australian State Science and Research Organization has completed animal testing and will soon join the rest of the eighty studies that are currently being conducted worldwide. More information, including these mentioned here, can be read at the following link.
Such headlines are intended to mislead readers, therefore it is important to read the text too, not only the headlines.
