Madam Yap Lay Hong, 102 (above), is among 16 residents and staff at the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home who caught the virus. Madam Yap, who was born during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, is fiercely independent even at her age, said Mr Then Kim Yuan, the administrator of Lee Ah Mooi home. - The Straits Times/ANN
SINGAPORE: A 102-year-old woman became Singapore's oldest Covid-19 (coronavirus) survivor on Saturday morning (May 2), joining a handful of centenarians worldwide who have beaten the disease.
After Yap Lay Hong returned to the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home after being discharged from Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the home said on Facebook: "We welcome home our residents who fought hard to recover and overcome (Covid-19)."
Yap Lay Hong's recovery put her among the almost 1,300 people in Singapore to have recovered from Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
Though centenarians in Britain, Italy and the Netherlands have made headlines after surviving Covid-19, worldwide fatality data suggest that the elderly are vulnerable to the disease, making up the bulk of the 230,000+ recorded deaths.
Two other residents of the Lee Ah Mooi home died in hospital after contracting Covid-19.
Some estimates suggest that up to half of the virus-linked deaths in some European countries have been in nursing or care homes for the elderly - in many cases without any hospitalisation.
Singapore has seen the number of cases of Covid-19 jump 17-fold since April 1.
By Saturday, the Ministry of Health had confirmed 17,548 cases, the third-highest in Asia after China and India.
Ministry statistics released on Thursday showed 14,397 cases among low-wage migrant workers crammed into dozens of dormitories.
Of the 932 new cases diagnosed on Friday, "the vast majority" were listed as foreign workers in the dormitories by the ministry, which said that an average of 14 cases a day were being diagnosed outside the residences.
After Yap Lay Hong returned to the Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home after being discharged from Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the home said on Facebook: "We welcome home our residents who fought hard to recover and overcome (Covid-19)."
Yap Lay Hong's recovery put her among the almost 1,300 people in Singapore to have recovered from Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
Though centenarians in Britain, Italy and the Netherlands have made headlines after surviving Covid-19, worldwide fatality data suggest that the elderly are vulnerable to the disease, making up the bulk of the 230,000+ recorded deaths.
Two other residents of the Lee Ah Mooi home died in hospital after contracting Covid-19.
Some estimates suggest that up to half of the virus-linked deaths in some European countries have been in nursing or care homes for the elderly - in many cases without any hospitalisation.
Singapore has seen the number of cases of Covid-19 jump 17-fold since April 1.
By Saturday, the Ministry of Health had confirmed 17,548 cases, the third-highest in Asia after China and India.
Ministry statistics released on Thursday showed 14,397 cases among low-wage migrant workers crammed into dozens of dormitories.
Of the 932 new cases diagnosed on Friday, "the vast majority" were listed as foreign workers in the dormitories by the ministry, which said that an average of 14 cases a day were being diagnosed outside the residences.
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