A 90-year-old woman has recovered from coronavirus after spending 13 days in the hospital.
Anna Fortunato, of Long Island, first began feeling ill on March 13, according to a report published Tuesday by the Associated Press. Fortunato lived alone in an apartment until last year when she moved into the assisted living home The Arbors.
“In the hospital, they said I was a miracle. Maybe I was. But I worked at it, let me tell you something,” says Anna Fortunato, a 90-year-old with asthma who survived COVID-19. https://t.co/BtHyVPuMDZ
— AP Eastern US (@APEastRegion) April 7, 2020
“I have a sore throat, but it’s just a cold,” she told her daughter Teresa Gund at the time. “I’ll be fine.”
Over the following weekend, her condition worsened and she was taken to the hospital.
“She says, ‘Don’t you worry,” Gund recalled. “‘I will be fine. I have all the faith in God … and God is going to get me through this. He doesn’t want me right now. He wants me to stay here with you guys.'” (RELATED: 104-Year-Old WWII Veteran Recovers From COVID-19 Just In Time To Celebrate His Birthday)
Fortunato was administered the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which has been mentioned by President Donald Trump as a potential medicine to help treat COVID-19. It has not been widely tested.
Fortunato advised people who have come down with the virus to “keep on fighting” to recovery.
“Keep on fighting, have that positive attitude, and pray,” Fortunato said. “And get out of bed. Don’t stay in bed all the time. … And I want to say to them, ‘If I did it, you can do it.'”
“In the hospital, they said I was a miracle,” she added. “Maybe I was. But I worked at it, let me tell you something.”