A 104-year-old Iowa woman who was a child during the 1918 flu pandemic has officially received her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to local reports.
Velma McElderry received her first dose of the vaccine on Saturday, indicating what KETV-TV reported was the first time she had left her home in a year, as she remained isolated from friends and family to protect her against the new disease to protect.
McElderry’s daughter, Sue Peters, took her to the appointment. The woman from the Council Bluffs told the news station that the jab “was not that bad.”
‘It will be a great relief once she gets the second chance and can see family and they can get into the house and they do not have to worry about standing at the door or staying six meters apart. It will be nice, ‘Peters said.
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Peters spoke separately to the Sioux City Journal, saying her mother had penetrated the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was eager to get the vaccine.
“She reads a lot about the pandemic,” Peters said. “She talks about what’s going on, how many people are getting the vaccine and how many people have died. She’s been very interested in it since it started. She wants to get the vaccine.”
McElderry, who has three grandchildren besides five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, was two years old when the flu pandemic took over the world in 1918. Although her family was spared, Peters told the news station she remembers her mother telling stories from that time when she grew up.
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“She talked a little bit about it, how her mother would talk about the devastation and how it could wipe out the whole family,” Peters said, adding that her mother probably lived more shelteredly in a small mining town called Olmitz at the time.
“It’s a long life. She’s a troop. She’s amazing,” Peters added of her mother.