‘It saved her’: Family credits vaccine for 102-year-old’s symptom-free survival of COVID-19

She survived the Holocaust, but Mala Apter’s family feared she wouldn’t survive COVID-19.

Frail and suffering from late-stage dementia, the 102-year-old was diagnosed with the dreaded virus in mid-April at her long-term care home in Toronto.

“She’s 102, so she’s going to die at some point soon, but I didn’t want her to die like that, unable to breathe and everything that goes with COVID,” her daughter, Esther Kohn-Bentley, told CityNews.

On Friday, Apter came out of isolation, cleared by public health as virus-free.

The feisty centenarian not only survived, but managed to evade the treacherous symptoms of the illness altogether. “She tested positive, but she didn’t suffer at all with it,” her daughter marvelled.

Was it supernatural?

No, her family maintains, it was science.

Apter received her first shot of the Moderna vaccine in January, with her follow-up shot coming a month later.

“She was lucky that she got it when she did, and it saved her,” her daughter added. “I’m very convinced of that.”

Apter had no qualms about getting her shots, in fact, she was raring to roll up her sleeves.

“We were talking about vaccines and that everybody is going to get a vaccine because there’s a very serious illness going around and she said, ‘Me too, I want it too,’ “ Kohn-Bentley explained. “And we said, ‘OK it might hurt a little bit.’ “

“I don’t care I need it,” Apter replied.

Mala Apter, 102, survived the Holocaust, and now has survived COVID-19. Her family credits the COVID-19 vaccine with allowing her to battle the virus, symptom free. Photos provided by family.

 

Apter’s willingness to receive the vaccination didn’t surprise her granddaughter-in-law, family doctor Nili Kaplan-Myrth.

Kaplan-Myrth, who practices in Ottawa where she’s been part of the vaccination effort, says older Canadians are often the least resistant when it comes to being vaccinated.

“People in their 100s and their 90s, they’re all like ‘Oh, yes darling, we did this before. We understand this,’ because they’ve seen people who have had polio, they’ve seen people that have had serious illness and disease from preventable viruses.”

“There’s that hope we are clinging to that one day we will get to go back to Toronto and we will get to sit at her side … and help her blow out her birthday candles when she turns 103.”

Apter’s daughter believes that will only happen if restrictions are eased when a large majority of the population has been vaccinated.

Her parting message?

“If a 102-year-old frail person with late stage dementia is smart enough still to know that she needs a vaccine, for heaven sake go out and get your vaccine.”

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