8 ms·

Italy: 101-year-old influenza survivor beats Covid-19

48 points by elmar 7y ago

melling 7y ago
Perhaps because she had the Spanish flu? That was a theory
Ericson2314 7y ago
Forget young people, Mr. Thiel should get some of his blood.
laxd 7y ago
Article doesn't mention if he was actually infected by the spanish flu or if he just survived the times. Anywho, fun happy news, worth the 5 seconds. Maybe not hn material. Edit: Free from memory of a spanish flu documentary I watched the other day: "As I entered the train, the conductor fell dead on floor. As the journey went on, I saw two more passengers die. Then the train stopped. The loco pilot had died, and I walked the rest of the way home." Spanish flu was some heavy shit. With young healthy people dying the first day of symptoms.
officialjunk 7y ago
surviving is one thing. to what degree was the permanent lung damage? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what-coronavirus-does-to-the-body/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-w...
- officialjunk 7y ago
  i think the downvoters don’t realize many are not recovering fully because of the collateral damage the immune system does to the lungs to beat covid19.
yurlungur 7y ago
I think some people are just blessed with great genes and great health/immune system throughout their lives. There are stories of 100+ yos who smoke, who eat typical comfort food everyday, who drink in moderation but consistently etc etc, whose lifestyles are what we basically understand as negative for your health but they are unaffected.
- _red 7y ago
  There could actually be a statistical case for people who have genes for longevity who drink, smoke, etc. I don't mean that 'smoking is good for you', but that those who are going to live long, will live long no matter what their personal habits are. Thus when you look at really old people, those that drink / smoke are over-represented. They are statistical outliers of course...
  - adventured 7y ago
    That's overwhelmingly the case. Obviously there are exceptions (which is what the critics will target to try to counter the premise, they'll shoot at the 1% negative case outliers among those with genetics for long life). George Burns is the classic example - 10-15 cigars per day for 70 years, lived to 100. It doesn't make you invulnerable of course, it shifts likelihoods strongly in your favor versus the average person. And you can still do incredibly stupid things to shorten your life, it won't prevent that. If the general public understood how set in barely flexible goo (you can only move it a bit) their health outcomes are at birth, it would encourage even worse diet and exercise behaviors due to an increased belief in futility. If you have the genetics to live to 75, you're not making it to 112 [1] no matter what you do. The news media has a thing they like to do with super old people: ask them what their magic secret is, and the answers are frequently wildly different; that's because it's mostly not what they did, but what they are made of, that produced the outcome (which isn't to say that living a healthier lifestyle, or having some good luck during life, won't help the long-lived get to 106 instead of 97; they too can slightly move the needle around in their box). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-52063482 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-52063482
    - felipemnoa 7y ago
      A lot of it has to do with luck. It is like trying to figure out the secret of a person that won the lotto. Out of billions, statistically speaking, some people will make it past 100. Like a coin that lands on head 5 times on a road. Nothing special about the coin. It just happens sometimes.
- 7y ago
hanoz 7y ago
Surely by now we should have enough data to make some serious progress on why this virus has such wildly different effects on different people.
- na85 7y ago
  Some people are just from the deeper end of the gene pool than others.
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Or the virus just acts differently. Tying this to some supposed 'genetic superiority' would be pretty dumb.
- 2019-nCoV 7y ago
  Initial viral load.
- avip 7y ago
  We don't even know why seasonal flu occasionally kills healthy people.
  - adventured 7y ago
    We do have some increased understanding of that at this point. It's their own immune system reaction that often kills those people. It's happening with Covid as well in younger people that are otherwise healthy. And we know that 90% of all Covid cases are occuring in areas in a temp zone of 37-64 degrees. Covid hates higher temperatures, as with influenza. The media refuses to report the facts: not all locations are equally susceptible. It's why NY and NJ have 50% of all US cases now. It's why the Phoenix metro of five million people, or the states of Nevada or New Mexico or Texas are not seeing the pandemic. It's why so many of Florida's cases are imported. It's why when you cross below roughly the Pennsylvania line, cases per capita plunge. It's why DC and Baltimore aren't drowning in cases, while NYC is (check out the lack of cases and hospitalizations in Delaware and Virginia). It's why the bay area, despite its near 8m population, has so few cases (which the media breathlessly touts as suddenly about to explode into the trillions - it's not going to happen). It's why Mexico, the rest of Latin America, and sub saharan Africa (as well as hot climates in Asia, including within China), are not seeing the pandemic in the numbers that were expected. It's why NYC, Milan, and Wuhan got hit so hard. It's the climates.
giovan-ni 7y ago
101-year-old Italians are making the news so often lately: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/home-office-tells-man-101-his-parents-must-confirm-id https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/home-office-...

48 points by elmar 7y ago

melling 7y ago

Perhaps because she had the Spanish flu? That was a theory

Ericson2314 7y ago

Forget young people, Mr. Thiel should get some of his blood.

laxd 7y ago

Article doesn't mention if he was actually infected by the spanish flu or if he just survived the times. Anywho, fun happy news, worth the 5 seconds. Maybe not hn material. Edit: Free from memory of a spanish flu documentary I watched the other day: "As I entered the train, the conductor fell dead on floor. As the journey went on, I saw two more passengers die. Then the train stopped. The loco pilot had died, and I walked the rest of the way home." Spanish flu was some heavy shit. With young healthy people dying the first day of symptoms.

officialjunk 7y ago

surviving is one thing. to what degree was the permanent lung damage? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what-coronavirus-does-to-the-body/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-w...

officialjunk 7y ago
i think the downvoters don’t realize many are not recovering fully because of the collateral damage the immune system does to the lungs to beat covid19.

yurlungur 7y ago

I think some people are just blessed with great genes and great health/immune system throughout their lives. There are stories of 100+ yos who smoke, who eat typical comfort food everyday, who drink in moderation but consistently etc etc, whose lifestyles are what we basically understand as negative for your health but they are unaffected.

_red 7y ago
There could actually be a statistical case for people who have genes for longevity who drink, smoke, etc. I don't mean that 'smoking is good for you', but that those who are going to live long, will live long no matter what their personal habits are. Thus when you look at really old people, those that drink / smoke are over-represented. They are statistical outliers of course...
- adventured 7y ago
  That's overwhelmingly the case. Obviously there are exceptions (which is what the critics will target to try to counter the premise, they'll shoot at the 1% negative case outliers among those with genetics for long life). George Burns is the classic example - 10-15 cigars per day for 70 years, lived to 100. It doesn't make you invulnerable of course, it shifts likelihoods strongly in your favor versus the average person. And you can still do incredibly stupid things to shorten your life, it won't prevent that. If the general public understood how set in barely flexible goo (you can only move it a bit) their health outcomes are at birth, it would encourage even worse diet and exercise behaviors due to an increased belief in futility. If you have the genetics to live to 75, you're not making it to 112 [1] no matter what you do. The news media has a thing they like to do with super old people: ask them what their magic secret is, and the answers are frequently wildly different; that's because it's mostly not what they did, but what they are made of, that produced the outcome (which isn't to say that living a healthier lifestyle, or having some good luck during life, won't help the long-lived get to 106 instead of 97; they too can slightly move the needle around in their box). [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-52063482 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-52063482
  - felipemnoa 7y ago
    A lot of it has to do with luck. It is like trying to figure out the secret of a person that won the lotto. Out of billions, statistically speaking, some people will make it past 100. Like a coin that lands on head 5 times on a road. Nothing special about the coin. It just happens sometimes.
7y ago

hanoz 7y ago

Surely by now we should have enough data to make some serious progress on why this virus has such wildly different effects on different people.

na85 7y ago
Some people are just from the deeper end of the gene pool than others.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  Or the virus just acts differently. Tying this to some supposed 'genetic superiority' would be pretty dumb.
2019-nCoV 7y ago
Initial viral load.
avip 7y ago
We don't even know why seasonal flu occasionally kills healthy people.
- adventured 7y ago
  We do have some increased understanding of that at this point. It's their own immune system reaction that often kills those people. It's happening with Covid as well in younger people that are otherwise healthy. And we know that 90% of all Covid cases are occuring in areas in a temp zone of 37-64 degrees. Covid hates higher temperatures, as with influenza. The media refuses to report the facts: not all locations are equally susceptible. It's why NY and NJ have 50% of all US cases now. It's why the Phoenix metro of five million people, or the states of Nevada or New Mexico or Texas are not seeing the pandemic. It's why so many of Florida's cases are imported. It's why when you cross below roughly the Pennsylvania line, cases per capita plunge. It's why DC and Baltimore aren't drowning in cases, while NYC is (check out the lack of cases and hospitalizations in Delaware and Virginia). It's why the bay area, despite its near 8m population, has so few cases (which the media breathlessly touts as suddenly about to explode into the trillions - it's not going to happen). It's why Mexico, the rest of Latin America, and sub saharan Africa (as well as hot climates in Asia, including within China), are not seeing the pandemic in the numbers that were expected. It's why NYC, Milan, and Wuhan got hit so hard. It's the climates.

giovan-ni 7y ago

101-year-old Italians are making the news so often lately: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/home-office-tells-man-101-his-parents-must-confirm-id https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/home-office-...