'It's like having a serious hangover' say test subjects given Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine

More than 43,500 people in six countries took part in the phase three vaccine trials.

James Fassinger

Written by James Fassinger Published on 11.11.2020 11:30:00 (updated on 11.11.2020) Reading time: 2 minutes

On the heels of Monday's announcement by the pharmaceutical giant that it's vaccine is more than 90 percent effective, volunteers who received the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech complained of feeling like they had a serious hangover and suffered from headaches, muscle aches or fever. According to them, the side effects were similar to those of the flu vaccine, the Daily Mail reported.

45-year-old Carrie, a publicist from Missouri, had her first dose of the vaccine in September and her second in October. She said that her head and whole body ached after the first dose, similar to the flu vaccine.

However, after the second dose, the symptoms were much more severe. Carrie signed up for the clinical trial because she said she felt it was her 'civic duty' and that yesterday's announcement of the trial's success made her 'very proud'.

Glenn Deshields, a 44-year-old lobbyist from Texas also suffered similar side effects. But he said regardless of his immune reaction, he is confident about the vaccine and is excite about Monday's announcement.

He compared his experience with that of his grandfather's stories from WWI, saying that terrible things happened then and people were just happy it was over. He said he feels similar, that hopefully it all will be over soon.

In clinical trials about half of volunteers are given the actual vaccine being tested, with the rest getting an injection that does not contain the vaccine. This is done to compare how at risk the two groups are of catching the virus, to see whether the vaccine had any impact. 

Bryan, an engineer from Georgia, believes he was one of the subjects that did not get the vaccine. He had no side effects from the shots he said, and after two shots he contracted Covid-19 after his daughter caught it last month. They have now both recovered.

He said he felt proud after hearing about the results of the trial and added that taking part in the trial was 'the least I could do to help out' as 'a lot of people are suffering from the virus' in America.

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