Jamie White still remembers that 102-year-old from January.
The woman, a resident at an area nursing facility, dutifully rolled up her sleeve and presented her arm.
Which enabled White, a pharmacist at Pierpont Landing Pharmacy in Morgantown, to administer a first shot of the Moderna vaccine.
It was an opening salvo in the battle to at least tamp down the coronavirus.
White and her colleagues are clinical soldiers on the front lines of that fight across north-central West Virginia.
Key Pharmacy in Morgantown is part of her network.
So are Preston Family Pharmacy, Belldina’s Pharmacy and Highland Pharmacy in Preston County – along with Champion Pharmacy, in Bridgeport, Harrison County.
All told, the group has administered 5,000 doses since January.
White will be at it again today in South Park for another round of vaccines for employees of Monongalia County’s school district.
The clinic is scheduled for 3 p.m. today, the pharmacist said.
“We’ll go to whenever we’re done,” she added.
Around 250 doses are scheduled to administered to teachers and other employees of all ages, she said.
“The district really has it down,” she said.
Gov. Jim Justice and Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s COVID-19 czar now hope everyone else who hasn’t registered for a vaccine will have it down in that regard, also.
Not getting vaccinated, Marsh said Wednesday during a press briefing, means opening the door to the more infectious, U.K. and California variants of the virus – which are spiking cases among a population decidedly younger than 102.
People as young as 19 are falling ill to the variants in Michigan and Florida, in particular, and more than 300 West Virginia residents have already been diagnosed with those strains.
Besides the pandemic protocols of mask-wearing and social-distancing, getting the vaccine is the only current, solid measure against the coronavirus, White said.
That’s why she was thinking about that 102-year-old and the 1918 pandemic that’s drawing parallels to this one.
Two pandemics in a life that is two years past 100, White said.
“And she came back for her second dose. That spirit is just amazing to me.”
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