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M.The third appointment with researchers this week, as a participant in the Covid-19 vaccine trials, was overshadowed by the news that the Oxford vaccine will likely be available to older people like me in the early part of next year, perhaps as early as January or February.
The vaccine I am testing – the Novavax one – will have test results in January and will likely be available in the summer. So what happens to us guinea pigs when the Oxford vaccine is available, I wanted to know. Being a reasonably healthy 75-year-old, I’m likely – in the doctor’s words – “at the bottom of the line” for it. I signed up to participate in the Novavax study for one year. But if I have the Oxford vaccine, will I stop being useful?
The charming young doctor smiled broadly and said “this is a really good question” to the whole world, as if everyone he saw hadn’t asked the same question. The answer is that as soon as I am offered a vaccine, they will “reveal” me, that is, they will tell me if I am one of the 50% of the guinea pigs who received the test vaccine or if I received the placebo.
If I had the placebo, I would have to take the Oxford vaccine and I will no longer be useful to them. That’s not how he defined it – he talked about how useful I had already been – but that’s what he meant.
If I got the test vaccine, if it proved to work in January, I can refuse my place in the Oxford vaccine line – or accept it, if I wish. If I decline, will I still be useful in the study? The answer, it turns out, is perhaps very definite. The problem is that once I know I have the vaccine in my body, it will affect my behavior and this will alter the results.
I realized he was right. I had just taken two subway stops to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, obsessively looking for a lonely corner in the last carriage. Would I have taken this trouble if I knew I was vaccinated?
I may still be of little use. They have yet to decide whether the data from “blinded” guinea pigs can still help in any way. But the inevitable waste of participants that will occur when a vaccine becomes available doesn’t help researchers.
The doctor asked the usual questions about my health and passed me on to an equally charming nurse. You know a nurse is about to take your blood when she asks you with elaborate nonchalance if you have interesting plans for the rest of the day. Well, I said, I have my French conversation group U3A, which now meets on Zoom. “Vraiment? Vous parlez couramment? “he said, and I never noticed the needle go in. It turns out he did the French A-level.
I’ll be back in late January, but for me, selfishly, the urgency will go away when the Oxford vaccine is available. At 75, there is a rumor that will not subside, asking how long you will have this blessed good health, tremendously scared that by the time you are free to do all the fun things you are planning, your health will give out. The vaccine will have gone to the rescue too late.
I was going to have a great year in 2020. Aside from a lot of traveling, my Clement Attlee comedy was due to have its third release at Highgate’s Upstairs at the Gatehouse in April. We have postponed it to November, and now we have postponed it to the first week of February. Please let us run it then.
I want my life back as long as I can enjoy it. So is it worth continuing the search if a vaccine has already been found? They say it is. There will be different vaccines, good for different purposes. And they could get cheaper. I’d like to think that this means that they will supply it at reduced rates to poorer countries, but that’s not how pharmaceutical companies work. If anyone wants to subsidize poor countries, it has to be rich countries.
So they’re still recruiting. The Novavax study has nearly met its target of 15,000 guinea pigs in the UK and has met the target of having a quarter of them over 65. Other studies need even more people. Some researchers are concerned about the diversity of volunteers. “We have a responsibility to ensure that our participants reflect the community we serve,” says Dr Fiona Burns, Royal Free Chief Investigator.
I’ll be back in two months as promised, although I don’t know how long after that. But for now, I’ve taken my leave. “À bientôt”, said the nurse. “À la prochaine”, I said.
• Francis Beckett is a journalist, playwright and author of several books, including biographies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
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