The fight for or against vaccines has been raging in the UK, and scientists are worried that skepticism could affect the results of specific trials. Watch the video and then do the accompanying English language exercises.
The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist and always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored.
Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.
This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.
So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:
Now that you’ve had a listen, let’s put your knowledge to the test with some of our vocabulary and comprehension exercises:
Vaccine sceptics might make trials a headache | Definition Match
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DAMPEN
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EXPERTISE
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FLOURISHED
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GRAPEVINE
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OMINOUS
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PACE
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RAGE
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SCALE UP
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SPIKE
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SWAMPED
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TEMPERED
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TRIAL
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Vaccine sceptics might make trials a headache | Fill In The Blank
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DAMPENED – EXPERTISE – FLOURISHED – GRAPEVINES – OMINOUS – PACE – RAGE – SCALE UP – SPIKE – SWAMPED – TEMPERED – TRIALLING
- It will soon be critical for the NHS to start vaccinating people against flu, to prevent hospitals being (swamped) with flu and Covid-19 patients this winter. Large-scale trials of Covid-19 vaccines, already under way in some places, are likely to start in Bradford in the autumn. It's therefore worrying, says Dr John Wright of the city's Royal Infirmary, that anti-vax conspiracy theories seem to have (flourished) in this pandemic. The numbers of hospital patients continue to slowly decline in the UK, almost down to single figures this week. There is great relief in Bradford hospital, (tempered) by the inevitability of a further (spike) of infection. You may know of the warning from Game of Thrones - winter is coming - and never before has that phrase been so (ominous). The prediction of a second wave of Covid-19 in January, with the added layer of an influenza epidemic, is John Wright’s worst fear. He and his team will be working hard to make sure they vaccinate as many people for flu as they can in the autumn. The race for an effective Covid-19 vaccine continues at (pace). Over 130 candidate vaccines have now been developed and more than 30 are in clinical trials, with some showing promising early signs. The Bradford Institute of Health Research is one of just five national centres for patient recruitment to clinical trials, and the staff have lots of (expertise) with testing new drugs. However, vaccine trials are a completely different ball game. Rather than (trialling) new drugs on a small number of patients with specific diseases they will be testing new vaccines on hundreds and thousands of healthy volunteers. They have been exploring how they could use sports centres or community halls to recruit these volunteers, and how they can (scale up) their research teams to cope with the numbers. They had been preparing for two different vaccine trials, only for the companies to pull them from the UK at the last minute and move them to the Americas. The pandemic fires have been (dampened) in Europe, but in the US and Latin America they continue to (rage), and if you are going to test a new vaccine you need countries where the virus is still accelerating. But despite these two false starts, there will be further trials of other candidate vaccines. It's therefore important to win the support of the public so that they sign up to these new trials, and to do that there is a need to counter some of the growing false news stories that the public are hearing on community (grapevines), which are leading people to believe that the vaccines are harmful.
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Vaccine sceptics might make trials a headache | True or False
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Theories against vaccines have decreased during the pandemic.
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Development of a vaccine is continuing at speed.
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The Bradford Institute is looking for ways to increase the size of its team.
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The pandemic continues with great intensity in the USA and Latin America.
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Lots of false news stories are spreading by rumours.
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And that’s it for today’s English lesson, where you can improve your English with the news and current events. Do you have any comments or special requests for us for the next edition of Learn English with the News? Be sure to leave any feedback you have in the comments section below, as we would love to help you on your quest to learn the English language!
For other Learn English with the News segments, be sure to check out the rest of our posts:
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Full Text
“It will soon be critical for the NHS to start vaccinating people against flu, to prevent hospitals
being swamped with flu and Covid-19 patients this winter. Large-scale trials of Covid-19
vaccines, already under way in some places, are likely to start in Bradford in the autumn. It's
therefore worrying, says Dr John Wright of the city's Royal Infirmary, that anti-vax conspiracy
theories seem to have flourished in this pandemic.
The numbers of hospital patients continue to slowly decline in the UK, almost down to single
figures this week. There is great relief in Bradford hospital, tempered by the inevitability of a
further spike of infection. You may know of the warning from Game of Thrones – winter is
coming – and never before has that phrase been so ominous. The prediction of a second wave
of Covid-19 in January, with the added layer of an influenza epidemic, is John Wright’s worst
fear. He and his team will be working hard to make sure they vaccinate as many people for flu
as they can in the autumn.
The race for an effective Covid-19 vaccine continues at pace. Over 130 candidate vaccines have
now been developed and more than 30 are in clinical trials, with some showing promising early
signs.
The Bradford Institute of Health Research is one of just five national centres for patient
recruitment to clinical trials, and the staff have lots of expertise with testing new drugs.
However, vaccine trials are a completely different ball game. Rather than trialling new drugs on
a small number of patients with specific diseases they will be testing new vaccines on hundreds
and thousands of healthy volunteers. They have been exploring how they could use sports
centres or community halls to recruit these volunteers, and how they can scale up their
research teams to cope with the numbers.
They had been preparing for two different vaccine trials, only for the companies to pull them
from the UK at the last minute and move them to the Americas. The pandemic fires have been
dampened in Europe, but in the US and Latin America they continue to rage, and if you are
going to test a new vaccine you need countries where the virus is still accelerating.
But despite these two false starts, there will be further trials of other candidate vaccines.
It’s therefore important to win the support of the public so that they sign up to these new trials,
and to do that there is a need to counter some of the growing false news stories that the public
are hearing on community grapevines, which are leading people to believe that the vaccines are
harmful.”