“Without the vaccine God knows what would have happened to me”

overcame adversity such as emigration, times of war and famine, they knew dictatorship and progress and they reached the century of life with the threat of a pandemic that put at risk, above all, the elderly.

Since the virus broke into our lives, 85 centenarians have been infected in the province of Ourense, 69 of them women. Twenty-two of these oldest inhabitants, witnesses of our past, died from COVID. Fifty bent the disease – including two women aged 106 and 107 – and 13 are currently passing the infection.

Hilda (101 years old), Leonor (103) and Filomena (102), exponents of a generation that make up 374 centenarians in Ourense -76.5% women-, have overcome the coronavirus. They are the face, the voice and the memory of strength, of resistant vitality, of iron health. They are the living example of the remarkable efficacy of one of the greatest achievements of science in decades: the COVID vaccine. This is the story of how they lived it.

“When I got infected I had a really bad time, my whole body hurt, I didn’t feel like eating. It was a feeling he had never had. It was a general malaise & rdquor ;, remember Hilda Isabel Serantes, which was infected in July 2021.

“I didn’t have that fever that they say everyone gets, but I couldn’t stand up and I couldn’t walk. I felt a general malaise, tremendous. God knows what would happen to me if I wasn’t vaccinated, they would intubate me… God knows& rdquor ;, recalls this 101-year-old woman, a widow, mother of two daughters, grandmother of five grandchildren and great-grandmother.

Longevity is a very personal secret, very difficult to extrapolate. “Mine is to lead a healthy life, I love to eat fruits and vegetables. I have never drunk or smoked. My only vice is chocolate and a glass of wine with food”.

Hilda Isabel Serantes is 101 years old and passed COVID in July 2021. BRAIS LORENZO

Hilda, the daughter of emigrants, was born in Camagüey (Cuba) on November 19, 1920. “I came to Galicia when I was 3 years old, then we left for Havana when I was 6, and we definitely return to my 9 years. I was in Ortigueira until I was 18 years old. Later I lived in A Coruña until 1955, when I got married. I lived with my husband from then until he died in 1989 & rdquor ;, recalls the centenarian, with enviable lucidity.

“All my life I was studying, working and living with my parents, whom I loved very much, and my little sister and my little brother. I was very happy with them. I was also very happy with my husband. I had two daughters, whom I adore. Without them I don’t know what purpose my life would have: none. I now have five grandchildren and a great-grandchild and my life goes slowly” .

Hilda’s father-in-law was Secundino Couto (1873-1960), a member of the Radical Socialist Republican Party and later of the Republican Union. Canedo ruled between 1931 and 1936 until Franco’s coup swept away freedoms and, ultimately, everything. He was the last legitimate, elected mayor of the current neighborhood of A Ponte, the most populous in the city.

He survived the Francoist repression, although he suffered it in prison in Ourense and Celanova, with forced labor in Oseira and with a trial for Freemasonry, being an old man, in addition to having his assets seized. “I like Pedro Sánchez a lot, I am a socialist to the core and I do not intend to change”, claims the daughter-in-law.

The oldest of the three protagonists is Eleanor Devesa, an Ourensana from Verea, 103 years old, separated and with a daughter. This woman dedicated herself to farm work until her daughter grew up and, at that point, she made the decision to move to the city of Ourense, where she lived alone and worked as a domestic worker. In January 2021, the centenarian Leonor contracted COVID. After twenty days in isolation at home was discharged with the joy of having overcome the virus without any symptoms.

Leonor Devesa, 103 years old, had COVID in January 2021 and was asymptomatic. BRAIS LORENZO

“He has always had a strong character, a great strength to get ahead in the face of any adversity. For me is a role model as a person who defends determination, independence and an open mind, in order to improve and adapt to the new scenarios that have been presented to him in life & rdquor ;, highlights his granddaughter Beatriz. This is how she remembers the moment when her grandmother contracted the dreaded coronavirus: “After spending 20 days confined, she was discharged and we were able to tell that he overcame the virus without any symptoms”.

The power of the vaccine: several centenarians have been asymptomatic

Filomena Novoa, born in Vilamarín, could not go to school. He learned to write his name using a stick in the ground. This 102-year-old woman, born in November 1919, a widow and mother of a daughter, resided in Venezuela for four decades, that is, almost half life. Filomena was infected with coronavirus in May 2021. With the two doses of the vaccine in her body, the centenarian had no symptoms of the illness.

His story is remembered by his granddaughter-in-law Jeni. “He learned to write his name with a wand in the dirt, to add and subtract. She started working as a young girl, at the age of 12, as a housemaid. He had to work because they were very poor and he had to help his mother”.

The longevity formula is perhaps due to the way of life of this unique generation. “They eat well, they don’t have vices, they don’t smoke, they don’t drink… He has never taken medication either. His great secret I think has been the type of life he has led. The body has never been poisoned with any medication or any chronic treatment & rdquor ;, highlights the granddaughter.

Filomena Nóvoa, 102, was also asymptomatic. BRAIS LORENZO

“She said: ‘I came to Spain with my sick husband, without knowing how to read or write, and I learned to defend myself.’ Now, As an adult, she looked in the mirror and said that she did not recognize herself, that this was not her. ‘I have always had a very good memory’, he told me, and when he started to lose her he cried from impotence. He repeated: ‘It’s not me, it’s not me & rdquor ;, remembers his relative.

Grandma Filomena was infected with coronavirus despite the fact that “she was always wearing a mask. My father-in-law came from Venezuela with a negative PCR. We trusted each other and had meetings, dinners, lunches, barbecues… My father-in-law tested positive on May 6 or 7 and we all got infected, except my mother-in-law. When they told us that Filomena was positive, we raised our hands to our heads. We were all bad, but she had a normal time. He had both doses of the vaccine and he came through. We were worse than her, though we were afraid because of the high viral load in the house”.

More risk at older age

Ourense is one of the oldest territories in Europe and loneliness is the only company for 13% of the population: 38,600 people live alone, 20,000 are over 65 years old, mostly women.

The province is the cradle of centenarians. The number of inhabitants over 100 years old has gone from 172 people in 2010 to 374 in 2021, according to the Galician Institute of Statistics.

A year of pandemic meant, between 2020 and 2021, that the age group most affected by COVID in Ourense moved from those over 70 in 2020 – 26.5% of patients– to theunder 29 in 2021 (35.9%). The change in the age group over 80 was even more drastic: 16.1% of cases in 2020 and 6.1% in 2021.

Related news

Vaccination and monitoring led, according to Sergas, a progressive reduction in cases of coronavirus in the elderly, in which the disease implies a greater risk, since can decompensate diseases chronic or previous pathologies. In addition, with aging the immune system weakens. But there are cases of resistance.

*With thanks to the protagonists, their families and Cláudia Morán, for their contribution in the interviews.