Only residents 65 and older are eligible for vaccinations under an executive order issued last month by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which restricts COVID-19 vaccinations in the first phase to nursing home residents and staff, people 65 and older, medical workers and anyone they deem "extremely vulnerable” to COVID-19.
Smith was born in a time when there was no influenza vaccine, and no hope for one.
Recalling what she had been told of her childhood, Smith said her father, Harold Will, was stationed in France during World War I when the flu hit, so her grandmother "practically kidnapped" her and her mother, taking them out of Syracuse and into Watertown, New York, when the pandemic started getting worse. Smith’s sister, Katherine, was already living outside Syracuse with an aunt.