SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Pfizer vaccine rolled into the doors of UC Davis Health on Tuesday symbolizing the light at the end of the tunnel of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m really excited I got to be a part of it and do my part,” Lucas Solano said.
Solano was a participant in the Pfizer vaccine trial and said he received his first shot in the trial in August. After many pushback dates, he said he is happy to see the vaccine be approved.
“It’s really exciting to see this actually happening and coming to fruition, but it was definitely faster than I thought,” Solano said.
Although it was a quick turnaround from trial to approval, Solano said that doesn’t take away from his confidence that the vaccine is safe.
“I think it’s really important that people listen to science. Good science is factually based, it’s not opinionated, it’s not political. In order to get the approval, it has to be based on facts and hard evidence. So people can even see in the other clinical trials that when things weren’t going right, the FDA stopped the trial and re-evaluated the data before they let them continue,” Solano said.
Being a researcher at UC Davis, he has gotten push back from his colleagues who say they support the vaccine, but do not want to get the shot themselves.
“I know some of my colleagues and stuff think new research and techniques sometimes need a little bit of time to be proven, so that’s some of their hesitations,” Solano said.
Solano still does not know whether he received the placebo in the trial or the real thing but says he will be first in line to get the shot if he hasn’t already.
“The lead scientist felt that participants in the placebo group should be given the opportunity to receive the vaccine so they are actually going to push for us to get it, not immediately, but at our next study visit which would be six months from our second injection,” Solano said.
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