I received the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. Or maybe not.

When I volunteered to roll up my sleeve on an untested Covid-19 vaccine, I was nervous. Not so much about the vaccine: I had done my research and was satisfied that it was safe enough. What made me nervous was telling my friends and family. How would they respond when they found out he was going to be a guinea pig?

If they refused, I had my fundamentals ready. First, the professional reason: As a science journalist, I have advertised the benefits of biomedical research in stories about vaccines and clinical trials. If I believed in what I wrote, shouldn’t I be willing to present my own body?

Then the disinterested: I wanted to help, to know that I was doing everything possible to overcome this pandemic.

And let’s not forget the selfish reason: Yes this vaccine works, and Yes I got the real product and not the placebo (I had a 50/50 chance), so I would be one of the first to join the pack, immune to the scourge. That reasoning got a boost Monday, when Pfizer announced that the vaccine it could have received was more than 90 percent effective.

There is no way to turn this type of ad into a conversation, but I managed to share it with a few people and I didn’t hear anything but compliments. “That’s great,” my mom said. And when I told an editor that I would not be available one morning because I was going to participate in the experiment, she simply said, “Thanks for taking one for the team.”

It is true that my personal circle is inhabited by a large number of PhDs of science (we are super fun, I promise!). And I know that not everyone thinks like us. A mid-October survey reported that only 58 percent of Americans said they would receive a Covid-19 jab as soon as one is approved and ready. For African Americans, the figure was only 43 percent.

But to ensure that a vaccine is safe and effective for everyone, it must be tested in volunteers of various backgrounds and ages.

There are multiple potential Covid vaccines in large-scale trials around the world, each requiring thousands of raised hands. I’m not going to tell you should be in court; that’s a very personal decision. But what if you are so inclined? Thanks for taking one for the team.

Vaccines and clinical trials have gotten a bad rap and, in some cases, have been justified. People of color have valid historical reasons to distrust physicians handling experimental treatments, and medicine has a long history of minorities under-enrolled in clinical trials.

In the current crisis, we have seen the US Food and Drug Administration rush into a dizzying rush to approve treatments based on scant data, then back down later. Some people worry that vaccines will also reach citizens before safety is secure.

So I did my research. Thanks to an article I wrote over the summer, I had a good idea of ​​what I might be getting in the shot. If I were to get the real thing, it would be genetic material (RNA) that encodes a part of the virus, which should, hopefully, train my immune system to attack the virus behind Covid-19.

He wanted to know how many people had already received the vaccine and what happened to them. I found my answer on MedRxiv, a collection of yet unexamined scientific articles. At least three dozen people had received this particular vaccine candidate, according to an article that has since been published in the peer-approved scientific literature, and some of them experienced side effects such as fever and chills, headaches and fatigue. I could handle all of that.

Over the phone, I charged a nurse with more questions. If the vaccine makes me sick, will Pfizer cover my medical bills? Yes. If this or another Covid vaccine were widely available in the future, would trial participants be allowed to receive it? Again yes.

So in early September, I drove 15 miles, farther than I’d traveled in months, to the Long Beach, California clinic, which was packed with fellow volunteers being led around by nurses in a rush trying to keep up. social distancing. I was happy to see black and Hispanic faces. I didn’t get a chance to compare notes with any of them, so I will never know why they chose to participate or how their families reacted.

The shot itself was almost anticlimactic. I hardly felt a pinch.

Having promised to return for a booster and several check-ups, I headed home with a phone number to call 24/7 if I had any problems, a smartphone app to report any symptoms of Covid and a prepaid credit card loaded with $ 119 for my problem. (The card received two more deposits for the visits that followed, but I have not used any of the money to avoid a conflict of interest as a science journalist.) I envisioned those magical RNAs leaking through my muscle, infiltrating my cells, and preparing to prime my system against a Covid invasion.

Of course, it could have received a lot of salt water. I knew from my research that among the small group of early participants, those who received the vaccine were more likely to experience side effects than those from the placebo, so I figured the worse I felt, the more likely I was building immunity against Covid. But I felt absolutely fine, which was strangely disappointing. On my last visit, the nurse said she did not know when the study would be cleared, if at all. So I may never find out what was in my shot.

Even if I got the placebo, I am making a significant contribution to the vaccine effort and am glad I took a step forward. I would have liked to be 50 percent effective; The Pfizer results, although preliminary, had me make a jig in my kitchen. I hope this means that Covid can be beaten with many of the 200 vaccine options in various stages of development, and that those vaccines will be rolled out as soon as it is safe to administer.

I will make sure my whole family gets theirs. I hope you do too.