evidence: - a rush to charter a jet when a flight-ban prevented vaccine from getting into the country - dismay at totally false reports on social media that the first volunteer to be immunised had died - concern that falling infection rates over the summer would jeopardise the hope of quick results - how an initial half-dose of the vaccine unexpectedly provided the best protection - an admission from the chief of Oxford's partner, drug company AstraZeneca, that it would have run the trials "a bit differently". [...] The checks did not fail, and after seven weeks they had enough doses of the vaccine to start the first trial. By this stage 10,000 volunteers had been recruited - all of them signing up within a matter of hours. Elisa Granato, a microbiologist, and Edward O'Neill, a cancer researcher, were the first two to receive Oxford's trial jab in April. [...] Unlike other vaccines being trialled, the Oxford team had been taking weekly swabs from all volunteers to check whether they were infected but showing no symptoms. If the vaccine could prevent silent transmission it could stop them from unwittingly passing on the virus. "That's a big deal. Because that means the virus could be stopped in its tracks," says Pollard.