Spanish Flu survivor, 106, gets COVID vaccine

An elderly woman who survived the devastating 1918 flu pandemic received a COVID-19 vaccination on Wednesday, giving her a good chance of making it through the current pandemic as well. 106-year-old woman lives in a retirement home in Brazil. She and other residents were given the SinoVac vaccine, part of a mass immunization program launched by authorities in the Rio de Janeiro region. Born in Rio in 1914, she was a girl when the so-called Spanish flu killed as many as 50 million people around the world in 1918-1920, when no vaccines were available.

She was delighted after getting her shot early Wednesday morning, celebrating by blowing kisses to staff and visitors from the sunny front lawn of the residence. Centenarians like her are among the first vaccine recipients in many countries, including Brazil, where the government's immunization campaign officially kicked off on Tuesday with distribution of the Chinese-developed SinoVac vaccine. With more than 210,000 deaths, Brazil has the second highest tally in the world behind the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.