Every second of every day, all of us are consumed with the COVID-19 updates. From how many cases in India to projected numbers of deaths, our entire day is shadowed by a gloomy invisible monster.
In the midst of all this negativity, one positive story of recovery has the power to instill immense hope in all of us that motivates us to go on. One such positive story recently came out from God’s Own Country, Kerala.
In the Ranni sub-division of Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district, a 93-year-old farmer has become the country’s oldest patient to recover from the coronavirus infection. The man along with his 88-year-old wife recovered from the virus, a month after they tested positive for COVID-19.
The couple’s children, daughter and son-in-law had recently returned from Italy and had possibly infected the old couple.
Remember the infamous Italy couple who had run from the airport after reportedly skipping coronavirus screening? That’s them. The couple was eventually tracked down by a team of officials but by then they had already infected several members of the family, including the old farmer couple.
Rijo Moncy, the old couple’s grandson who lives in Italy with their parents, said that his grandfather’s favourite food is “Pazhankanji” made of rice gruel, “Kappa” (tapioca) and “chakka” (jackfruit) snacks, while his grandmother loved eating fish, as reported by India Today.
Across the world, the mortality rate is higher amongst old-age people and this is probably why medical professionals hail the recovery of the old couple as a “miracle cure”. Due to the onset of old age, the man had hypertension and diabetes, the two conditions that have proved to be fatal in other instances of COVID-19 across the globe.
While the farmer and his wife are the oldest coronavirus survivors in India, they aren’t the oldest in the world. According to reports, two 103-year-old women, one in China’s Wuhan and the other in the Iranian city of Semnan, were discharged after testing positive for COVID-19.
Instances like this one in Kerala provides hope that fighting spirit and miracles are intrinsic to humanity. We have faced plagues and deadly flues before and survived, we’ll be able to take on this one as well.