Why I volunteered for a COVID-19 vaccine trial

So why did I volunteer to be injected with an experimental vaccine for COVID-19? That’s what some of my friends wanted to know when I told them what I was doing. “Who knows about the long term,” texted a former college roommate. “Seems like a gamble.” It all began in July when the British government announced it was seeking lots of volunteers for large-scale clinical trials of new vaccines. Only a month before, a good friend of mine here had died of COVID-19 after spending weeks on a ventilator. Curious, I completed an online form, figuring I wasn’t committing myself to anything.