UC Davis offers coronavirus vaccine trial. Here’s how many will get it and how it works
UC Davis Health began administering the first injections Thursday in clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine. West Sacramento resident Lucas Solano was one of 1,500 area residents vying for 200 slots.
”I heard about it from one of my roommates, who’s an intern at the UCD Medical Center,” said Solano, who works on the UCD Health campus in Sacramento. “As a cancer researcher, my focus is primarily cancer but the goal is to benefit society. When I heard about this opportunity, I decided to try to sign up. I felt lucky when they actually chose me to participate in it.”
Solano, 27, described the shot as a pretty painless way to help scientists trying to beat back the respiratory illness that has killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and devastated economies, causing millions to lose their livelihoods.
Despite the number of applicants, UC Davis researchers said they have not yet filled all 200 slots. That’s because it’s important that they test in populations hardest-hit by COVID-19, said Dr. Tim Albertson, the principal investigator for the vaccine trial at UCD.
While the initial group of volunteers was diverse, representing the breadth of Sacramento’s population, Albertson said, his team is seeking more applicants from the Black, Asian Pacific Islander and indigenous American communities, as well as residents in mature age groups.
Because many African Americans are reluctant to volunteer for clinical trials, given past gruesome experiments conducted on their demographic in the past, Albertson wanted to explain more about how the trial works.
Two out of every four people, he said, will receive the active vaccine candidate. The other two will receive a placebo that will have no effect, and no one on the medical team knows which vials contain vaccines and which contain the placebo.
Staff will explain the trial, what is required of participants and how they’ll be evaluated and monitored. All participants will have to sign a consent form. Their blood work and a nasal swab will be taken before the vaccine is administered, but those results won’t be evaluated by researchers before the shot is administered.
All participants will get an electronic diary to take home to keep track of any symptoms they might have. After three weeks, all participants must return for a booster shot. Everyone will be evaluated for two years to determine the efficacy of the vaccine candidate and to evaluate any side effects.
“It’s an interesting side benefit,” Albertson said. “People who participate in clinical trials for whatever disease do better, even if they get placebo. ... That is, in part, extra eyes looking at them and their ... own interest in their medical care.”
He added: “We make no promises that this is going to help them or even help society, but it’s clearly an important step in helping society. In other words, this particular trial may not work out, but if we didn’t do any of these trials, no one would get any advancement.”
Taking steps to get rid of this ‘terrible disease’
Three regional hospital groups are seeking participants for COVID-19 vaccine trials. UCD and Kaiser Permanente are administering a vaccine candidate developed by New York’s Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech, while Sutter Health’s East Bay AIDS Center in Oakland plans to participate in the clinical trial of a potential vaccine produced by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
“Sutter Health is committed to bringing this investigational vaccine to our patients and community across our integrated network to help advance knowledge, science and potential prevention of COVID-19,” said Dr. Christopher Hall, an infectious disease specialist at Alta Bates in the Bay Area and lead researcher for the prospective vaccine study at Sutter.
There are more than 24 potential vaccines being developed that will target the new coronavirus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19. Drugmakers are enrolling thousands of people in clinical trials, so there may be more chances to get into one.
Albertson said that, at the end of the study, participants will be able to find out whether they received the placebo or the vaccine. There’s a chance, though, that they will learn it before the two years are up because doctors may be authorized to share whether their antibody levels spiked.
The body’s immune system produces antibodies when faced with bacteria, viruses, fungi, animal dander or cancer cells. They attach to those foreign substances, allowing the immune system to destroy them.
It’s difficult to convey the level of enthusiasm that trial applicants and UCD researchers and staff have brought to this effort, Albertson said. Lawyers, researchers, administrators, medical staff and now community members all have leaped obstacles to bring this together, he said, because everyone is ready for this enforced isolation to end.
“I hate being in COVID prison,” he said. “It’s a nice prison, but we don’t get to go where we want to go. We don’t get to do what we want to do, so we’ve got to get rid of this. It’s just a terrible disease. The enthusiasm of the volunteers, the enthusiasm of the investigators and the people involved in doing everything from drawing blood to giving instructions, everybody wants to ... get this done.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: Correction: Due to incorrect information provided to The Bee, the article misstated the ratio of people who will receive a placebo versus the active vaccine candidate. The ratio is two out of four. In this update, The Bee also corrects the spelling of Lucas Solano’s first name.
