Recovering from the Coronavirus, a 107-year-old Dutch woman has possibly become the oldest survivor of the pandemic globally.
Cornelia Ras fell ill on March 17, the day after celebrating her 107th birthday. Reportedly, she had attended a church service with other nursing home residents on Goeree-Overflakkee, an island in the southwest of the Netherlands.
She and 40 others from the service were subsequently diagnosed with the deadly Coronavirus.
Out of the 40, twelve have tragically died, but Ras received the news from her doctors on Monday that she had conquered the infection.
“We did not expect her to survive this,” stated her niece Maaike de Groot to the newspaper.
“She takes no medicines, still walks well, and gets down on her knees every night to thank the Lord. From looking at it, she will be able to continue to do so.”
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands increased by 1,213 on Thursday to 21,762, as per health authorities, with 148 new deaths.
The country’s death toll now sits at 2,396, according to the Netherlands’ Institute for Public Health (RIVM) in its daily update.
Prior to Ras, the oldest widely documented coronavirus survivor was Bill Lapschies, a 104-year-old American who also survived World War II and the Spanish Flu pandemic.
Lapschies, born in Salem in 1916, first displayed symptoms commonly associated with the deadly virus on March 5. He was immediately put into isolation at the Edward C Allworth Veterans’ Home in Lebanon, Oregon, where he currently resides.
In China, Zhang Guangfen, a 103-year-old grandmother, managed to recover from Covid-19 following a six-day treatment in Wuhan.