113-year-old woman becomes one of oldest to survive the coronavirus

by Anagha Srikanth | May. 12, 2020

square in the town of Olot, Catalunia, Spain

Story at a glance

Older people are at high risk for contracting COVID-19 and dying from the disease.
Spain’s oldest survivor of coronavirus recently turned 113 years old.
Branyas is one of the oldest people to recover from coronavirus in the world.

Maria Branyas turned 113 on March 4, making her the oldest person in Spain.

She tweeted out the first and last lines of a poem by Mario Benedetti on an account run by her daughter, “How do I let you know that there is always time? How do I let you know that no one sets rules, except life?”

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After surviving COVID-19, Branyas may have found a way. The oldest person in Spain, she has now become one of the oldest coronavirus survivors in the world.

“Thank you very much for your congratulations and encouragement, although I would have preferred not to have to live this unfortunate and absurd situation of the treatment of the elderly in the country,” she tweeted in Catalan on May 12.

She was born in San Francisco, California, in 1907, after her parents and two older siblings moved there from Mexico City. Her family later moved to New Orleans, where her younger brother was born, she tweeted, recalling the Roman Candy Cart she would pass on the street and her affinity for sweets.

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Now, Branyas lives in a care home in the Catalonian city of Olot, according to Spanish media outlets. On March 27, she tweeted that the first cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed in the home.

“Don’t blame staff and workers. They are giving up their lives. These girls have children, husbands, parents … and sometimes a lot of fear. And, despite the anguish and pressure, they come to take care of us every day. Thanks,” she tweeted in Catalan.

Since recovering, Branyas has not been able to receive visitors due to the country’s ongoing lockdown and has been passing the time by sharing her past on Twitter with her nearly 700 followers. On March 12, she tweeted that she would be appearing on a local broadcast station. She has had much to say about the coronavirus pandemic and the current situation in Spain, especially the handling of the outbreak among older populations.

“In the solitude of my room, fearless and hopeful, I don’t quite understand what’s going on in the world. But I think nothing will be the same again. And don’t think about redoing, recovering, rebuilding. It will have to be done all over again and differently,” she tweeted.

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