Kamla Das, who became a centenarian at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020, was on Thursday, 18 March, administered her first shot of the vaccine at BLK Hospital in Delhi.
Das said the jab was “totally painless”, according to PTI.
“My mother turned 100 during the pandemic and we held a three-day celebration from September 2-4 to allow guests to come, as large gatherings were not allowed then. My siblings were afraid that she could contract COVID-19, but we thought she has lived a good life and not everyone gets to see their 100th birthday. So, we made it a special one for her,” her youngest daughter Jyotica Sikand told PTI.
Das was born in Sindh on 3 September 1920. She told her daughter “the shot was so painless that she couldn’t even recall which hand it was administered on”.
Das’ vaccination follows a fair number of centenarians taking the vaccine. Prior to the day that the 100-year-old received her first dose, PTI had reported that Brij Prakash Gupta, also born in 1920, took his first shot at the same hospital.
Apart from these two centenarians, on 15 March, 107-year-old Kewal Krishan, who was five years old at the time of the outbreak of Spanish Flu, was vaccinated. Born a few months before the outbreak, 104-year-old Tulsi Das Chawla took his shot at a private hospital in Delhi on 5 March.
(With inputs from PTI.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)