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The First Shot | Teen starts COVID-19 vaccine trial journey

Clover Anglin received a trial of the COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday. Now, they will play an important role in seeing how the vaccine affects children.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — As Americans wait for the FDA to approve the COVID-19 vaccine, children are becoming a critical part of the clinical trial process.

After the tickle from the swab test, the actual shot for 14-year-old Clover Anglin went smoothly.

“I hardly even felt it," Anglin said. "Like it didn't hurt at all, which is really good."

Mindy Wadley, an employee at First Coast News, wanted to share her child's story after their first appointment and COVID-19 dose Tuesday.

However, it is possible she is one of the patients who receives a placebo instead.

"I'm really excited to contribute to finding a cure, hopefully, and you know, making things better for everyone," Anglin explained.

The teen is a part of CNS Healthcare’s Jacksonville trial that’s testing Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine for effectiveness in children ages 12-14.

However, the process is more than receiving two shots. Anglin will also keep a journal of how they feel and what the injection spot looks like over the next week.

UF Health Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases Dr. Mobeen Rathore said he knew this would follow after Phase 3 safety data was completed for adults, but this is a huge COVID-19 vaccination milestone.

“Most of the milestones, unfortunately, have been terrible, but we're getting towards something positive," Dr. Rathore said. “I'm very pleased that children's studies are being started, and children and are participating. It won't be too distant in the future, we'll have the data on children also.” 

Dr. Rathore encourages First Coast teens to participate in these studies and help researchers.

“Hopefully, the next step would be even children younger than 12 years of age," Dr. Rathore explained. "There's no expectation that this vaccine would be any less safer than it is in the adults. And there's also an expectation that it would not be efficacious. If anything, the 14-year-old immune system is probably stronger than 60-year-old immune system.”

Historically, he said, the United States needs to get to a 90-95% immunization rate for vaccines to provide the best community protection, which is why immunizing children for COVID-19 will be so important.

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