Healthy Mother Of Two Gets First Dose Of Experimental Vaccine For Coronavirus

SEATTLE (CBS Local) -- A healthy mother of two teenagers has become the first person in the United States to receive a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine.

Jennifer Haller, 43, received the first of two shots of the potential COVID-19 vaccine Monday at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle.

"I'm feeling great," she told CBS affiliate KIRO. "The actual vaccination itself felt much like a flu shot. Didn't hurt much. Very easy. Feeling great."

Haller, who lives in Seattle, says her 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter "think it's cool" that she's taking part in the study.

"Everybody feels so helpless right now, and I was so excited to be given this opportunity to do something tangible to help thousands, millions of people," she said.

Two other volunteers were also injected with the vaccine on Monday. In all, 45 people will be vaccinated for the trial.

Kaiser Permanente screened dozens of people from 18 to 55 years old for the trial, looking for those who have no chronic health problems and aren't currently sick.

The vaccine, code-named mRNA-1273, was developed by the National Institutes of Health and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc.

There's no chance participants could get infected from the shots because the test vaccine doesn't contain the coronavirus itself.

Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. However, health experts say a vaccine for the public is still at least a year away.