Maggi to be part of COVID-19 vaccine test

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

Many have looked for ways to help throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,  but some have found the little things we all can do don’t feel like quite enough.

Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi has spent time volunteering with the food bank and with Meals on Wheels, but he felt he could be doing more.

“I didn’t know what else I could do,” Maggi said, adding that he enjoyed the volunteer work, but it didn’t quite strike the right chord with him.

He started hearing about the clinical trials for vaccines for COVID-19 and the volunteers those studies would need.

“I thought I’d look online and I saw they were looking for volunteers and I answered a questionnaire,” Maggi said.

The five-term commissioner said he got a call within 10 or 15 minutes and answered another battery of questions. About 10 or 15 minutes after that, he got another call with more questions, and — you guessed it — he got another call with more questions, this time it was a health assessment. 

Just like that, he was accepted into a COVID-19 clinical trial being conducted by Pfizer.

Initially, he was supposed to start the trial Aug. 17, but the people running the study called last week and wanted to move it up. Today was the soonest Maggi could start, and the company would have taken him even sooner if he could have managed it.

“It sounds like they’re trying to fast track this,” Maggi said. “There is such a dire need that they’re trying to push this along as quickly as possible.”

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