‘No problems at all’: Central Florida family members get both COVID-19 vaccine doses as part of clinical trials

Although thousands of health care workers and residents of assisted living facilities have received the COVID-19 vaccine, no one has officially received the second dose except some of those in clinical trials.

A family that Channel 9 has been following only knows they did because they took an antibody test.

After going through the Pfizer trial, and each of them getting two shots, the Barbosa family now knows half of them received the real vaccine, and the others got the placebo.

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Their son Antonio has antibodies, but their daughter Christine does not.

Because they’re some of the few people in Florida to have received both the first and second Pfizer vaccine, we wanted to know how it was going for them nearly two months after their second dose.

“We’re fine; no problems at all,” Laura Barbosa said.

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She said the first shot, which she received in October, was very easy, but they did have side effects after the second one, on Nov. 2.

“The second shot I got a little sick the day after,” Laura Barbosa said. “I mean, the shot itself is nothing. I ran about 101, 101.4 fever.”

She said Tylenol took care of it, and also had some body aches and said her arm was red and pretty itchy for about a day.

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“People that are getting it now, I think after that second shot, should consider having a way to get off work or be off work,” Laura Barbosa said.

Laura Barbosa, who’s also a registered nurse, hopes people won’t let the minor side effects keep them from getting the shot.

“It’s not a reaction. It’s your immune system responding. So it’s not like you’re sick. It’s just your immune system fighting,” she said.

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