■ INSIDE: To recover from the virus, Ada Zanusso recommends courage and faith, the same two qualities that have served her well in her 103 years of life.
ROME — To recover from the coronavirus, as she did, Ada Zanusso recommends courage and faith, the same qualities that have served her well in her nearly 104 years.
Italy, along with France, has Europe’s largest population of what has been dubbed the “super old” — people who are at least 100.
As the nation with the world’s highest number of COVID-19 deaths, Italy is looking to its super-old survivors for inspiration.
“I’m well,” Zanusso said Tuesday during a video call from the Maria Grazia Residence for the elderly in Lessona, a town in the northern region of Piedmont. “I watch TV, read the newspapers.”
Zanusso wore a protective mask, as did her family doctor of 35 years beside her, Carla Furno Marchese.
Asked about her illness, Zanusso is modest: “I had some fever.”
Her doctor said Zanusso was in bed for a week.
“One day she opened her eyes again and resumed doing what she used to before,” Furno Marchese said.
What helped her get through the illness?
“Courage and strength, faith,” Zanusso said.
It worked for her, so she advises others who fall ill to also “give yourself courage, have faith.”
COVID-19 can cause mild or moderate symptoms, and most of those who are infected recover. But the elderly and those with existing health problems can be at high risk for more serious illness or death.
Under Italy’s five-weeklong lockdown, which is aimed at containing the spread of infections that have overwhelmed hospitals, visitors aren’t allowed at homes for the elderly.
Her doctor asked Zanusso what she would like to do when “they open the doors.”
“I’d like to take a lovely walk,” she said. replied. And your three great-grandchildren? “Watch them play together.”