Has anyone had to defend their decision to take part in the trial?
To start off with I didn't tell anyone until I'd had the first injection. Then I told people slowly and really expected my friends and family to be polite about it. While I got a bit of praise and thanks and a few questions, the comments that said I was very brave etc. I interpreted as their disproval. Fine, they were, as I expected, polite at least.
Anyway, today a friend of a friend called who wasn't so tactful and told me I'm talk of the town and they're all very surprised I've done it and a doctor friend of theirs said I must be mad and what if I react badly and get really ill bla bla bla.
FFS! I just said "Why would I get ill? Nobody in the earlier phases of the trial became ill. I've done a lot of research and I know what I'm doing." That shut her up a bit, but I can't stop thinking about it.
Just wondered how you're all doing in this regard.
The comment that pisses me off the most on social media is that the vaccine (there are lots, but whatever!) has been rushed. I'm pretty good at attempting to debunk that opinion with a pre-scripted list!
I say "Obviously I did loads of research and read up on the results of phases 1&2 of the Novavax trial. Loads of doctors and a couple of the doctors I follow on Twitter are in trials which was very reassuring. So far there are no concerns over its safety. People’s main concern seems to be that it’s been rushed. The developers have got to this stage so quickly for a few reasons.
Firstly China shared their research and the DNA profile of the virus in January so other scientists around the world could get going straight away.
A lot of the ground work was done already with the sars and mers vaccine work. They had a massive head start.
Because of the nature of the pandemic and the impact it's had, they’ve been able to get the amount of volunteers by the 100,000s they need super fast. Unheard of before.
They haven’t had to spend years applying for funding. Governments and huge corporations are throwing money at them.
The regulatory bodies are putting all covid vaccine studies at the front of the queue so they’re not held up waiting in line for approval.
There’s (at risk) parallel production in place so they’ll get to market asap.
So, yes, a lot of short cuts have been made but none of them comprising on safety."
It seems people don't know much about it, which is fine. It's mega technical sciencey shit. But they're happy to spout and repeat whatever they hear, just so it looks like they know something. "Er, you won't catch me having that. It's not safe."
Fuck off! What do you know?!
Sorry! I'm just feeling very judged.
Everybody wants an end to this shitstorm. A vaccine is the only way out before more lives are lost, ruined. Our economy, our nhs are unrecognisable.
Someone has to fucking test it. At this stage it's more for efficacy than safety.
I probably got fucking saline anybloodyway.
It's late! Thank you for getting this far! x