Metro woman participating in COVID-19 vaccine trial optimistic about Pfizer’s news

ATLANTA — Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has some promising news about a possible COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer announced Monday that it believes its vaccine is at least 90% effective based on early test results.

“We’re in a position potentially to be able to offer some hope,” Dr. Bill Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president of clinical development, told The Associated Press. “We’re very encouraged.”

Channel 2 anchors Jovita Moore and Jorge Estevez sat down to speak with one of the local participants in the trial for her insight into what the trial has been like so far.

Ashley Nealy first spoke with Channel 2 Action News a few months ago when she answered the call for more diverse participants. She shared her thoughts on WSB Tonight about Monday’s big news.

“It made me really excited, especially since it was the Pfizer trial that I’m participating in, um, the whole point was to make sure that this vaccine could work,” Nealy said. “So having a 90% effective rate really made me happy and like, I played a little small role in that as well.”

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Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have enrolled nearly 44,000 people in final phase of their vaccine. No one, neither participants, doctors nor Pfizer, know who gets the real vaccine and who gets placebo.

Nealy explained she developed only mild symptoms after receiving the first dose in the trial.

“After the first dose, the next morning, when I woke up, I had a lot of the side effects that they described to us ahead of time, if you were to get the vaccine. So I was fatigued. I had some body aches. I had a loss of appetite. And I was just really tired most of that day,” she said.

“But by the time I woke up the following morning, all my side effects were gone. And I am happy to report that on my second dose of the vaccine, I didn’t have any of the side effects that I had the first time.”

As it is in the trial, the Pfizer vaccine could possibly be two doses instead of one like a flu shot is. So far, the expectation is people will take one dose before returning three weeks later for the second one.

Nealy said she thinks the three weeks window will be tricky for some people.

“I don’t think you can delay it that much. So getting people to come back that soon might be a little hard.,” she said. “But I do want people to remember that it’s only effective if you get both shots. So I don’t want people to think that if you get one that you’re OK, but it’s really only effective by having both of those doses.”

Many people have expressed concerns about the vaccines and not trusting the process. Nealy said the transparency with the trials has eased her concerns.

“That’s actually one of the reasons why I decided to sign up because they laid out all the possible things that could go wrong. And the biggest thing that could go wrong was that you might have some flu like symptoms right after you get the shot.”

“So I know people are weird, because it seems rushed. But it’s not really rushed. Because there’s been a lot of research dedicated this in such a short amount of time. So I say it’s safe. And I say, Please get it if you can, when it’s distributed.”

Pfizer estimated it could have 50 million doses available globally by the end of the year, enough for 25 million people. The vaccine could be more widely available sometime next summer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Pfizer says early analysis showing coronavirus vaccine over 90% effective in trial (NCD)