the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic a century earlier, his grandson said.
Philip Kahn is the oldest veteran in Nassau County, New York, according to his family, and
had been fearful of another pandemic happening in his lifetime, his grandson, Warren Zysman, told CNN.
“It was something he brought up quite frequently,” Zysman said. “I would have conversations with him,
he would say to me, ‘I told you history repeats itself, 100 years is not that long of a period of time.'”
Kahn and his twin brother, Samuel, were born on December 5, 1919. His brother died weeks later, his grandson said. The 1918 influenza pandemic, caused by a virus previously known as the “Spanish flu,” killed and estimate of more than 50 million people globally and about 675,000 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of April 22, there are more than 46,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States and about 19,000 deaths in New York State, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.
Kahn was a sergeant in the US Army Air Force during WWII, Zysman said, and acted as an engineer and co-pilot, keeping war planes fueled. He received two Bronze Battle Stars for his service in WWII, his grandson said. After the war, he worked as an electrical foreman to help build the World Trade Center, Zysman said.
In Long Island, Kahn lived on his own and walked one to two miles a day, Zysman said. He was very aware of what was happening with coronavirus since he watched the news all the time, and in the last days before his death on April 17, Kahn experienced coughing and respiratory symptoms of the virus, his grandson said.
Kahn knew that there was a possibility that he could have contracted the coronavirus.
The Spanish flu killed more than 50 million people. These lessons could help avoid a repeat with coronavirus. “He talked about his brother a lot in the last few days,” Zysman said.
The 100-year-old veteran received a coronavirus test, but his family did not get the results
until after Kahn passed away. “He had always wanted a large military funeral, however,
we weren’t able to provide that to him,” Zysman said.
The cemetery arranged for two people in the armed forces to perform a military ceremony,
and a man whose father was a Marine during WWII played the bugle at Kahn’s funeral from
a distance, Kahn’s grandson said. “He volunteered because the Air Force protected the Marines by providing cover for them and he felt it was a honor to do this for my grandpa,” Zysman said.
Sampson Lester Friedman, Khan’s friend who served with him during WWII in the Army Air Force, attended the funeral and gave a tribute to Kahn, which Zysman recorded on video and provided to CNN. “[There was] something about him that was very very special,” Friedman said at the funeral.
“On our airplane, he was an engineer, and he was the hardest working guy aboard that airplane.”
Over the century that followed his brother’s death, Kahn kept the memory of his brother alive. “Pretty much every holiday, every event, he would bring up his brother Samuel,” Zysman said. “It clearly made a hole in his heart that he never got to meet his twin, and that his twin died a few weeks after birth.”
Although for Philip Kahn story had an unhappy ending!!!
ALLENDALE, N.J. (TEGNA) — Sylvia Goldsholl very well may be the oldest coronavirus survivor in America. Goldsholl was born on Dec. 29, 1911. At 108 years old, Sylvia Goldsholl may be the oldest resident living in New Jersey. Goldsholl tested positive for the virus in March and was moved to the COVID-19 isolation wing at Allendale Community for Senior Living where she has lived since 2007.
Within two weeks she was considered healthy and cleared.
“The oldest of four children and she always states she was the smartest one from the bunch,”
No one older than Goldsholl seems to have gotten COVID-19 and survived. A web search turned up some news reports of 107-year-olds in Turkey and the Netherlands who recovered from the virus.
But that was about it. “It’s very dangerous.
I survived everything because I was determined to survive” Goldsholl says.
Goldsholl has lived through her fair share of world crises. The 1918 pandemic, both World Wars and the Great Depression. “I’m a very friendly person. If you’re friendly to me, I return the friendliness,” she says. A longtime Bronx resident, Goldsholl moved to New Jersey 20 years ago. She was more interested in speaking about her family than the current pandemic.
“A lot of stubbornness in them, which they get from their pop. Their pop had a lot of brains…
I am a survivor. I’ve got to come out on the top of every list,” she says. The virus has taken a disproportionate toll on the elderly in New Jersey.
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A 108-year-old woman from New Jersey, Sylvia was born on December 29, 1911 has recovered from coronavirus, and could be the country’s oldest Covid-19 survivor. During her 108-years, Goldsholl has lived through both the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and now the Covid-19 pandemic, over 100 years apart. Goldsholl is not quite the oldest reported person to have recovered from the coronavirus – when New Jersey’s governor Phil Murphy announced the news at a briefing. “A tremendous life, a tremendous spirit, and a tremendous show of strength,” the governor wrote in a tweet celebrating Goldsholl.
‘I survived everything because I was determined to survive,’ she said – A 113-year-old woman in Spain,, also originally from the U.S., was reported to have recovered on Tuesday. ‘I survived everything because I was determined to survive,’ Goldsholl said in an interview conducted over video chat with News 12 New Jersey last week. Goldsholl, who has recovered fully from Covid-19 having battled with it for a couple of weeks, has lived in a nursing home in Allendale, New Jersey since 2010.
She was moved to an isolation wing at the care home when she was diagnosed.
Sylvia Goldsholl celebrates her 108th birthday shortly before she was diagnosed with the coronavirus. When she was just seven years old, the Spanish Flu took hold of the globe and saw an estimated 50 million people succumb to the virus. Today, over 303,000 people have now died of Covid-19, and which is particularly harmful to anyone over the age of 70 making her recovery even more remarkable. Goldscholl originally lived in the Bronx in New York, living in the apartment in which she grew up for most of her life, before she moved to New Jersey 20 years ago. News 12 reported that she didn’t particularly want to talk about the coronavirus when she was interviewed, but was willing to reminisce about her family.
‘The oldest of four children and I was the smartest one from the bunch,’ she said. ‘I am a survivor. I’ve got to come out on the top of every list.’ ‘They knew that I was a wonder,’ she said of her family to NorthJersey.com.
‘I met their expectations. I represented them in a very well way.’ When interviewed by News 12 New Jersey, she said that she was a ‘survivor’, which is particularly true considering she has now survived through both the Covid-19 and Spanish flu pandemics Goldsholl never married or had kids of her own, but her niece, Nancy Chazen, told the news website that Goldsholl loves her family, and said that she planned to visit her aunt once the pandemic is over. ‘She always wanted to have family parties,’ Chazen said.
‘She thought it was important to stay in touch with the family.’
Chazen said Goldsholl had a ‘reputation for being an advocate’ saying that she used to write letters to government officials about issues she cared about. One issue in particular Goldholl emphasized was the importance of education, saying: ‘My mom was educated in Russia. She wanted very much to be knowledgeable. ‘My father came from a very high-class background.
I made the best of both. I’m glad I’m where I am,’ the 108-year-old added. Goldsholl is clearly very loved at the care home. When she celebrated her 108th birthday in December, the care home leaders released a statement saying she had become an older sister to many of her neighbors since she had arrived, and enjoyed spending time with the other residents.
In a post on its Facebook page, staff at the care home wrote: ‘Our own, Sylvia Goldsholl has become a media darling, grabbing headlines on local TV and print. ‘Her story of survival at 108 years of age made the front page of today’s Record. Not a shy one, Sylvia is a delight for interviewers. During such tough times Sylvia, is a model of positive perseverance. Congratulations Sylvia!’
A 113-year-old woman – Spain’s oldest person – becomes the oldest Corvid -19 Survivor… Turkish woman becomes the second 107-year-old to beat…
At the time, News 12 reported that Goldsholl could be the oldest person anywhere to have survived the coronavirus, however, a 113-year-old woman in Spain, originally from the U.S., has since been reported to have recovered. Maria Branyas, 113, is likely to be the world’s oldest person to have survived the coronavirus after catching it in April and later testing negative Maria Branyas, a mother-of-three, survived COVID-19 whilst in the Santa Maria del Tura care home where she lives in the city of Olot, eastern Spain.
Branyas was originally born in San Francisco in the United States on March 4, 1907, before she moved with her family to Spain in 1915. She then lived in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Banyoles, Girona, Calonge i Sant Antoni and Palol de Revardit (all of them in the Catalonia region), and has been a resident in the care home for two decades. Like Goldsholl, Branyas lived through the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the world in 1918, but also was in Europe during World War I (1914 – 1918) and World War II (1939 – 1945), as well as
the Spanish civil war between 1936 and 1939.
Also Havahan Karadeniz was admitted to a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey experiencing symptoms
of the virus. She recovered from the illness and was discharged on April 13. Havahan was suffering from a cough and a high fever when she was tested for coronavirus and admitted to the Istanbul Education Research Hospital. A week later she had overcome the virus and was applauded by medical workers as she was wheeled out of the hospital by her grandson.
Havahan is thought to be one of the oldest patients in the world to beat the virus, after 107-year-old Dutch woman Cornelia Ras made a recovery last week. Cornelia fell ill on March 17, the day after her 107th birthday, Dutch newspaper AD reported, after attending a church service with other residents of her nursing home on Goeree-Overflakkee, an island in the southwest of the country. She was told by her doctors that despite the odds she had beaten the infection.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: 108-year-old New Jersey woman lived through Spanish flu. Now, she’s survived coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus continues to batter cities and overload hospitals across the US, causing residents to experience anxiety over the unknown, the health of their loved ones, the economy, and more. Psychologists say feeling worried and anxious is normal in a crisis like this, but it can be managed. To cope, limit your media exposure to the issue,
do your part in helping control the virus’s spread, reach out to others,
and follow these other expert tips.
1. Know that feeling anxious about coronavirus is OK and normal.
With rising death tolls, epic unemployment rates, physical isolation from loved ones, and, for many, a loss of routine and purpose, Americans are enduring a mental-health crisis alongside the medical one. According to an Axios/Ipsos Poll of 1,092 adults in the US conducted between March 13 and March 16, 78% of men and 82% of women are either somewhat or extremely concerned about the outbreak. A more recent Gallup poll found that daily stress and worry plague 60 percent of American adults.
That’s understandable, Julie Pike, a clinical psychologist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who specializes in anxiety disorders, told Business Insider. “Anxiety is mother nature’s way of trying to protect us by pushing us to resolve uncertainty and figure out a solution,” she said.
But while eliminating coronavirus-related stress is a tall order, it can, and should, be managed so you can maintain your mental health — and your immunity.
Business Insider talked to mental-health professionals and survivors of COVID-19
about how to cope.
2. Tell yourself something that is certain.
The unknown of the pandemic — how long it will last, who it will affect, and how it could change our lives forever — is a large part of why it’s so anxiety-provoking.
“Uncertainty fuels anxiety,” Natalie Dattilo, director of psychology in Brigham & Women’s Hospital’s department of psychiatry, told Business Insider.
To counter that, remind yourself of what is certain, no matter how minuscule.
Say something like, “I am certain that no matter what happens, we will find a way to deal with it. Or, “I am certain that I love my family and will do everything in my power to protect them.” Or even, “I am certain that
I am standing here today, still breathing, and the sun is shining,” Dattilo recommended.
“By adding even a small element of certainty in the face of overwhelming uncertainty,” she said,
“you can re-establish a connection with the present moment, ground yourself,
and maintain a good sense of self-control and confidence.”
3. Limit your media exposure, especially if you struggled with anxiety before the pandemic.
Because panic arises when people overestimate a threat and underestimate their coping abilities, “watching coverage that repeatedly emphasizes both the rapid spread of coronavirus and lack of effective treatment”
is a fuel for the anxiety fire, Pike said.
“While it is fine to have a general idea of what is happening, especially if you live near an area with high concentration of cases, it’s important to limit media exposure, particularly from undocumented or potentially unreliable sources,” she said. The World Health Organization’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also encouraged people to check the news from reliable sources only once or twice a day.
4. Do what you can to protect yourself and your family, including excellent hygiene and
social distancing practices. Action is the antidote to anxiety, and there’s actually a lot individuals can do to protect themselves and their families. Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly, sanitize high-touch surfaces often, and stay home as much as possible.
5. Do your part in protecting your community, whether by helping more vulnerable neighbors with groceries or simply staying home. You can also take action to help your community, whether that means helping an elderly neighbor get groceries, donating blood, or staying in even when you feel healthy and are able to go out. Because asymptomatic people can carry and spread COVID-19, “the choices you make about where you go can be the difference between life and death for someone else,” the WHO director general said.
Todd Herman, an entrepreneur and business coach in New York City who’s quarantined with coronavirus,
also encourages people to think outside of themselves. “If we all just sort of chew on what’s uncomfortable for a couple of weeks, how it mitigates and prevents this being a prolonged and terrible event can’t be underscored,” he previously told Business Insider. Doing so can ultimately save lives, he said, by buying the healthcare system time to care for all the patients flooding it.
6. Try to focus on what you are grateful for, not wish you would change or go away.
Rather than marinating in worries that you’ll get the coronavirus, your wedding will be cancelled, or your kids will be out of school until fall, “focus on what you value and what you are grateful for.” For her, that means being able to spend more time with her children and that spring, and its accompanying warmer and longer days, is around the corner.
She recommends people make a daily “gratitude list” in order to build psychological resiliency.
Doing so “also helps us to stop narrowly focusing on potential threats or negative elements in our environment, which our limbic brain … is wired to do,” she said. “Widening our perspective and recognizing that while things are challenging and uncertain, there are also good things in our daily lives” can make a big difference.
7. Seek virtual help from mental-health professionals, or download a de-stressing app.
Therapists around the country are shifting their practices online, and many established virtual therapy services like Brightside and TalkSpace are experiencingbooms in business.
Some services are changing their offerings in light of coronavirus; TalkSpace, for one, is offering free therapy for healthcare workers on the front lines of fighting the pandemic.
And some therapists are holding free online group therapy sessions, Business Insider previously reported. Some de-stressing apps can help more immediately and cheaply, too, Melissa Robinson-Brown, a therapist based in New York City, said. She recommended the guided meditation apps Calm and Headspace, the latter of which is currently offering free subscriptions, and Daylio, which helps you track your mood and daily activity so you can keep a mental-health promoting schedule.
8. Just breathe.
You don’t even need to download an app to experience the anxiety-reducing magic of simply breathing. Psychiatrist Dr. Mimi Winsberg, the co-founder and chief medical officer of Brightside,
recommends the 4-7-8 method, which can re-instill a sense of calm when you feel out of control.
The method involves breathing in for four seconds, holding for seven, and exhaling for eight, Briana Borten, clinical ayurvedic specialist and founder of The Dragontree wellness company, previously told Insider.
But more than the particular count, what matters is that the exhale is longer than the inhale.
“Lengthening the exhale emphasizes the release.
You’re releasing whatever is going on and relieving stress,” Borten said.
9. Attempt to maintain a routine.
Herman and his wife, who were quarantined in a New York City apartment with their three kids,
tried to maintain a routine for the kids, with scheduled reading times and other activities.
That strategy is important for adults as well, as daily routines like commutes and dinner dates come to a halt. “Within our homes, maintaining structure and routine is critical because it reinforces order and predictability,” Dattilo said. “It’s also something over which we have control. We know that structure binds anxiety, so to the extent that we can maintain our routines, that helps.”
10. Eat healthy, don’t smoke, and exercise when possible.
Good nutrition and sufficient movement are good for both body and mind.
WHO’s Tedros recommended eating “a healthy and nutritious diet, which helps your immune system to function properly,” limiting alcohol and sugary drink consumption, and not smoking.
“Smoking can increase your risk of developing serious disease if you become infected with COVID-19,” he said.
He also encouraged people, in compliance with local and national guidelines, to go out for a walk, run, or bike ride while keeping a distance from others, or otherwise getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day for adults and an hour for children. “If you can’t leave the house, find an exercise video online.
Dance to music. Do some yoga, or walk up and down the stairs.” For people working at home,
he added, get up for a short break every 30 minutes.
11. Use the time to reach out to loved ones and reconnect with old friends.
Social isolation can fuel depression and, over the long term, is even linked to a shorter life span.
So just because you may be physically distant from other people, you can, and should, stay socially connected to them. “If you check in with people once a month, check in four times a month,” Herman said. And fortunately, doing so is easier today than ever. Tools like FaceTime and Skype “may help us still feel and maintain those connections without potentially putting ourselves at risk of being exposed to the virus.”
Loneliness researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, previously told Business Insider. She recommended being proactive about reaching out to others and asking how they’re doing — you’ll boost your mental health as well as theirs, since they’ll at least experience the perception of support, which research shows can reduce stress. Holt-Lunstad added that the silver lining to something like a directive to reduce contact with the outside world is the ability to slow down and connect with the people closest to us. “When you’re having people still express love and support in a variety of ways,
it can make those periods of relative confinement more bearable.”
12. Use the experience to reevaluate areas of your life.
Alex, a 29-year-old in the UK, has needed to isolate himself for periods in the past in order to prevent common viruses from exacerbating his cystic fibrosis. He recommends people new to isolation use the time to reconsider how they want their lives to look after coronavirus. He, for example, has come out of past periods of isolation with a dedication to make the most of his college experience, the desire to travel more even though it means hauling around suitcases of medicine, or with the gumption to quit his job and launch his own business.
“This isn’t a punishment, this is actually a real opportunity for people to be able to reflect on themselves and their lives up to this point.”
In 2006 Professor James Lovelock, warned that the world’s population may sink as low as
500 million over the next century due to global warming. He claimed that any attempts
to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the problem, merely buy us time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PEm1q0mOVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKjcB3q7ybY