it's certainly not just about being old nor in a nursing home. I hate to sound like a vampire, but don't some medical researchers need to check out some of her blood?!

She’s 108, Lived Through the Spanish Flu and Just Beat Covid-19

Sylvia Goldsholl, who lives in a New Jersey nursing home, is one of the country’s oldest survivors of the coronavirus. “She’s very feisty,” her nephew said.

By Corey Kilgannon @ NYTimes.com, May 15

Last month, relatives of Sylvia Goldsholl received troubling news from her New Jersey nursing home: She had contracted the coronavirus and was in isolation.

With the virus proving especially deadly for older people, the prognosis seemed dire for Ms. Goldsholl, who turned 108 in December.

“This is killing people in nursing homes all over New Jersey and the country,” said Nancy Chazen, a niece of Ms. Goldsholl. “Quite honestly, I thought that was going to be the end — I mean, she’s 108.”

Two weeks later, relatives received another call.

“They told us, ‘She’s fully recovered,’” said Ms. Chazen, whose aunt has become one of the oldest Covid-19 survivors in the world [....]

Ms. Goldsholl, who lives in the Allendale Community for Senior Living in Allendale, N.J., was born on Dec. 29, 1911, and grew up in the Bronx, the eldest of four children of Russian immigrant parents.

As a child she lived through the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 and 1919, and she also lived through two world wars and the Great Depression.

“She’s Forrest Gump,” said a nephew, Larry Goldsholl.

Ms. Goldsholl told News 12 New Jersey that, “I survived everything because I was determined to survive.”

Larry Goldsholl said that when he heard his aunt had contracted the virus, “we didn’t know what to think because she has survived so much at this point.”

“We thought, ‘Well, this could be it,’ but knowing Sylvia, I should have known better,” he said. “She’s pretty spunky, and it seems like people who live that long have good immune systems.”

Michael Brienza, an administrator for the Allendale center, said Ms. Goldsholl was never hospitalized or put on a ventilator [....]

A 108-year-old man in New Mexico has also survived the virus.

At his daily briefing on the virus on Thursday, Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey hailed Ms. Goldsholl — “a tremendous life, a tremendous spirit, and a tremendous show of strength” — as a role model [....]