105-Year-Old Fully Vaccinated Woman Who Survived Spanish Flu Dies Of COVID-19

A 105-year-old woman who survived the 1918 Spanish Flu and World War II has died of COVID-19.

Primetta Giacopini, a San Jose resident, died on Sept. 16 of COVID-19 at the age of 105. Her 61-year-old daughter, Dorene Giacoponi, suspects Primetta was infected with COVID-19 by her caretaker who had been feeling sick after her husband returned from Idaho.

Dorene noticed her mother coughing during a visit on Sept. 9. Primetta was rushed to the emergency room on Sept. 11 where her oxygen levels dropped over the next six days. A chest X-ray later confirmed that her mother had developed pneumonia and had to be put on a ventilator.

“They said nobody over 80 makes it off a ventilator,” Dorene, who agreed to remove her mother’s oxygen, told the Associated Press.

Primetta died on Sept. 16, two days after doctors removed her ventilator.

“I’m full of maybes, what I should have done with the ventilator ... (but) it broke through three vaccinated people,” Dorene said. “I’m reminding myself that she was 105. We always talk about ... my grandmother and mother, the only thing that could kill them was a worldwide pandemic.”

The 1918 Spanish Flu, which was previously considered the deadliest pandemic in modern American history, infected an estimated 500 million people across the globe and claimed the lives of up to 50 million. In the U.S. alone, the Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 675,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The COVID-19 pandemic has surpassed the estimated death toll of the 1918 Flu in the U.S. As of Thursday, 697,695 Americans have died of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

However, COVID-19 infections have seen a 13.3% decline over the past week. As of Thursday, the seven-day moving average of new confirmed cases was 106,395, down from 122,716 from the previous week.

Despite the decline, Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious disease expert and director of the Mayo’s Clinic Vaccine Research Group, warned of a possible resurgence if fewer Americans follow COVID-19 safety precautions.

"We will further ignore it and not wear masks at all, not take any precautions at all, travel again," Poland told Fox News. "And that in and of itself will cause yet another surge of COVID, of influenza and of RSV [respiratory syncytial virus, a common respiratory virus] this winter."

"It’s a very difficult task to convince a population that emotionally doesn’t want to hear it, and yet are risking their very lives.”