When the first wave of the COVID 19 virus hit, healthcare workers said that the virus was extremely fatal for older people above the age of 60. Also, people with underlying illnesses like asthma, cancer, diabetes etc.
But there are some who are not just old, but very old, who have beaten these odds. An example is Marilee Shapiro Asher, a 107 year old woman.
Joan Shapiro, Marilee Shapiro Asher’s daughter described the ordeal. Joan said that she received a phone call from the hospital where her mother Marilee was admitted after contracting the COVID 19 virus. The medical staff told Joanne to get to the hospital as soon as possible because Marilee likely had no more than 12 hours to live.
However, Marilee beat all odds. Marilee eventually ended up spending only five days at the hospital and then later transferred to a senior living community in Washington DC without ever needing a ventilator.
Joanne said that she believed the reason her mother survived the COVID-19 virus was because of the art that she was still involved in.
Marilee has been an artist for over 80 years and was supposed to hold an exhibition later this month in a gallery in Washington that was cancelled because of the pandemic outbreak.
According to Joan, the COVID 19 virus is not the first pandemic Marilee has survived.
Marilee has also survived the Spanish flu, another pandemic that affects the respiratory organs and infected roughly about 500 million people around the world and killed an estimated number of 50 million people.
Marilee contracted the deadly Spanish flu at the age of 6 in 1918. Joan disclosed that Marilee told her that when she first contracted the Spanish flu, she remembered feeling sick and knew that after seeing her father who she adored, she would be okay.
Another old survivor of the COVID 19 virus is Anna del Valle, a 106 year old woman in Spain. Anna del Valle reportedly contracted the virus from the nursing home where she lives along with 60 other residents and was transferred to a hospital in La Linea.
Anna del Valle is currently the oldest person in Spain to have recovered from the COVID 19 virus. In 1918, at the age of 5, Anna del Valle also contracted the deadly Spanish flu.
Another old survival of the COVID 19 virus is a 107 year old man named Rudi Heider. When Heider contracted the virus, his family and his nurses at the nursing home he lives didn’t think he would survive the virus.
Heifer is also a survivor of the Spanish flu and just celebrated is 107 years old birthday.
