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If you develop COVID-19 symptoms, take it seriously and seek medical attention, says Dr. John Hill, owner of West Volusia Family and Sports Medicine in DeLand.
Hill has experienced COVID-19 closely through vaccine trials, and his parents are both fighting the novel coronavirus.
“In my experience with influenza and other viruses like that, people have a few days to delay seeking treatment,” he said. “But with COVID-19, I don’t encourage anyone to not seek treatment as soon as possible.”
Hill said his parents, who live in North Carolina, both came down with COVID-19 and are currently recovering. He encouraged everyone to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines, and added that elderly people and those with underlying conditions should take extra care.
“At this point, we’re all up to speed with masks, hand-washing and social distancing, but moving forward, not delaying evaluation is extremely important,” he said.
Hill’s practice is also participating in COVID-19 vaccine trials conducted by Accel Clinical Research, by connecting patients who are interested to the opportunity to try the vaccine.
Hill said the research is progressing well.
“We’ve had very few, if any, adverse events,” he said.
When becoming vaccinated, some people can experience mild symptoms. And for some vaccines, patients can develop mild cases of the virus they’re vaccinating against. However, the way the COVID-19 vaccine is built, this isn’t possible.
“None of these vaccines have the potential to give COVID-19. They aren’t a dead or live version of the virus, they’re messenger RNA, a recipe for the cells to make a version of the virus that the immune system can respond to,” Hill explained. “It’s almost like a picture of the virus that the immune system recognizes so it can build antibodies.”
Hill added that unlike some versions of the influenza vaccine, the current COVID-19 vaccine undergoing tests contains no egg protein from its incubation period, so anyone would be able to get vaccinated, even those with egg allergies.
He encouraged any interested parties to consider taking part in the vaccine trials, especially those from minority ethnicities, as a more diverse testing pool is needed.
For more information about the vaccine trials, contact Accel Clinical Research online at www.covidorlando.com or by phone at 386-785-2400.
