CALITRI - Livia De Lucia, 86 years-old, walked three miles (4km) to get to her vaccination appointment on time, after having missed her bus. As she didn’t want to miss out on getting the anti-covid vaccine, she set off on foot, so as not to be late. If it were not for two women that had offered to give her a lift, she would have had to walk over nine miles. This took place in Calitri, a small commune in Irpino.  

  The bus-stop where she wanted to catch the bus from is called “postale” because, at one point in time, it had the task of delivering letters and packages. After ten minutes, Livia realised that she had missed the connecting bus. She told Il Fatto Quotidiano that: “maybe I mixed up the times for the ‘postale.’ I waited for a short while and then I started walking to Bisaccia, because my appointment was at one o’clock and I couldn’t miss it. I couldn’t allow that, partly because ‘it seemed bad’ and partly because the vaccine must be done.” Livia said that, despite not knowing the route well, it was a “simple walk. A few paces never killed anyone.” However, these “few paces” became three miles. 

  Bisaccia, which is another small comune in Irpinia, where the teaching hospitals have been administering vaccines for the elderly in the area for some weeks.   

  Livia explained that two women stopped their car and “told me that they were relatives of my cousin, and they asked me ‘where are you going’ and I replied ‘to get the vaccine in Bisaccia’, and they asked me ‘you’re walking there?’” Livia replied that: "'if I had a donkey I would go with it. Do you know how many times I did walks like this when I was young? I missed the bus but I can’t miss the appointment, because the doctors are waiting for me.’ Then they gave me a lift and I arrived in Bisaccia and there were doctors ready to give me the injection.”

  When Livia arrived at the hospital and told the doctors about her journey, they were stunned. It is clear that she wants to do all she can, such as by having the vaccine, no matter the cost, to help manage the virus. The region in which she lives is currently being badly hit by the pandemic. She said “if I hadn’t gone to get vaccinated then who knows when I would have got it. Let’s hope that this horrible illness stops soon. I always wear a facemask because I know what it means to have to deal with this beast. I have spent my life in the fields, so every day to go to work I walked miles and miles, so it doesn’t scare me to walk to Bisaccia." 

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