CNN Europe’s oldest person has survived Covid-19 after testing positive a few weeks before her 117th birthday.
Sister André, a nun born in 1904, tested positive for the virus on January 16, according to David Tavella, communications director at the Sainte Catherine Labouré nursing home in Toulon, southern France, where she lives.
André, who was born as Lucille Randon, showed no symptoms, Tavella said in an interview with public radio station France Inter.
“I did not know I had it,” André said in an interview with CNF, BFMTV. “No, I was not afraid, because I was not afraid to die.”
André is celebrating her 117th birthday on Thursday, and Tavella told France Inter that her favorite birthday meal includes foie gras and baked Alaska.
“Sister André’s birthday at a good time – it could not be a better time because it will be the beginning of big celebrations that will be arranged around this relaxation of our restrictions,” Tavella told BFMTV. “Our residents will be able to get out of their rooms, eat together and participate in activities.”
André worked as a governor and teacher and taught the children to be ‘very polite’, she told French TV station CNEWS.
She experienced two world wars, as well as the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 – she told CNEWS that she did not contract the deadly virus – and remained philosophical about the coronavirus.
“It will come and go,” she told BFMTV. “I do not know.”
André is the second oldest person alive today, after Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman born on January 2, 1903, according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG).
André became the oldest living person in France in October 2017 after the death of Honorine Rondello, and is the second oldest French person ever, after Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122.