Community Corner
Holocaust Survivor Is The First To Take COVID Shot Under Program Aimed At Home-Bound Seniors
A Holocaust survivor was the first to receive the COVID vaccine under DeSantis's effort to extend vaccinations to home-bound seniors.
By Michael Moline
February 4, 2021
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A Holocaust survivor was the first to receive the Pfizer COVID vaccine under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ effort to extend vaccinations to home-bound seniors.
During a news conference in Aventura, in Miami-Dade County, the governor announced that he had visited the home of Judy Rodan earlier in the day as she took the shot.
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Rodan’s entire family died in Auschwitz, but she survived because she was smuggled out of her home country of Czechoslovakia and hidden in a convent, according to an account by the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center in Dania Beach.
“Thankfully, [she] has been able to live a long and fruitful life, but everyone else in her family was taken and killed in the Holocaust,” DeSantis said.
“We owe our seniors; we owe people like Judy and these other Holocaust survivors for serving as inspirations to so many people in my generation and, hopefully, in my kids’ generation. We’re thankful for what they mean to this country and what they have done and how they remind us to never forget,” he said.
This is a special effort, beginning with 1,500 doses per week, that supplements existing provisions of vaccines to home-bound seniors by hospital and county health departments. The governor has reserved the first 750 of those doses to Holocaust survivors.
“We try to get the vaccines out to folks in a convenient way, but not everyone can go to a drive-through site. Not everyone can go the hospital. Some have family who can help them; not everyone has that all the time,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was in the area to open a vaccine distribution effort at Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center. Participants also include a Christian and a Muslim congregation, the governor said. DeSantis first began using houses of worship to administer vaccinations for seniors in January.
Thus far, 1,788,326 people in Florida have been vaccinated, according to the Florida Department of Health. Of those, 1,293,279 people 65 and older have been vaccinated — a push by DeSantis to give shots to the elderly.
This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.