Infect Me Please – Jett Ooi ECO 4

Recently a laboratory situated in the UK is searching for volunteers to be infected with Coronavirus, of course the volunteer would be paid for their services. For obvious reasons, this experiment is purely done for the research on the virus with the intent of making a vaccine.

The experiment will involve 24 volunteers at a time and it will be conducted in Hvivo’s Laboratory at Queen Mary BioEnterprises Innovation Centre in East London. Participants will be infected with a milder version of the Coronavirus that has been circulating before the outbreak, which will cause a mild respiratory illness. It is a 2 week quarantine with no physical contact with the outside world, where the participants will not be allowed to exercise and their food intake will be controlled. Nasal swabs, blood tests and used tissues will be used for examination.

To apply one must be a healthy resident of the UK, provide their medical history to the doctors and must undergo several test, before being picked as a candidate. By the end of the experiment you will be paid 3,500 GBP (6,900 AUD). Sadly, one can’t apply for this experiment yet, but it will be open for volunteering some time in the future.

I think that this offer will entice many of the UK population, as the amount offered exceeds the minimum wage in the UK which is 1,524 Euros a month (1,728 GBP). Not only does the price offered exceed the minimum wage, it also exceeds the average wage of 544 GBP a week, in a four week month that is 2,176 GBP. If a worker was able to get paid leave in addition to the 3,500 GBP, one is mostly likely to double their earnings. One of the greatest advantages of this deal is the low risk that this experiment possess as the Coronavirus that participants will be infected with is pre-existing and is a mild in comparison to COVID-19.

Hvivo is the first company that is beginning to look into clinical trials, where the participants are being infected with the Coronavirus. Now the question is whether other companies will be willing to start trials that are similar or if not the same, as the first company to find the cure or vaccine to the destructive COVID-19 will without a doubt receive vast amounts of money from multiple countries to get a hold of the miracle drug.

Hvivo currently has an advantage over other pharmaceutical companies in the race to draw in volunteers, as of now Hvivo has anchored the price of this service to be around 3,500 GBP. Competing companies will have to consider the affects of offering a lower price, which will only attract the most desperate of individuals and at the same time the most desperate of individuals must also be healthy. Affects of increasing the price can allow companies to test with more dangerous strains of the virus, but the chances of health organisations allowing that is slim.

If I could I would like to be a part of this trail. Who wouldn’t want a 2 week paid holiday and imagine what I could do with that money to reinvest into the economy to give it a boost