101-Year-Old Italian Man Leaves Hospital After Beating Coronavirus

A 101-year-old Italian man born during the Spanish flu pandemic left the hospital on Thursday after beating the Chinese coronavirus.

An Italian man – known as Mr. P. – battled the infection and won, according to a report by the local media outlet Rimini Today, which added Mr. P. has been discharged from a hospital in Rimini, Italy, and has returned home to his family.

“This morning, I was given some news,” said Rimini’s vice mayor, Gloria Lisi. “Mr. P., positive of Covid-19, was discharged from the Infermi hospital in Rimini and returned home.”

“Mr. P. from Rimini was born in 1919, in the midst of another tragic world pandemic,” added Lisi.

The vice mayor had been referring to the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed tens of millions of people around the world between 1918 and 1920.

“One hundred and one years old, a century lived almost entirely, and then this first glimpse of the new Millennium,” continued Lisi. “Mr. P. saw everything, war, hunger, pain, progress, crisis, and resurrections.”

“Once over the 100-year-old barrier, destiny has put before him this new challenge, invisible and terrible at the same time,” she added.

Mr. P. was hospitalized in Rimini last week after he was confirmed to be positive with the Chinese coronavirus. The 101-year-old man’s ability to beat the coronavirus offers a glimmer of hope for the tens of thousands of people infected with the disease in Italy.

On Thursday, an additional 712 people died in Italy from the Chinese virus in just 24 hours, bringing the nation’s overall death toll to 8,215.

“A hope for the future of all of us in the body of a person over one hundred years old, when the sad chronicles of these weeks mechanically tell every day of a virus that is raging above all on the elderly,” said Lisi.

“And he did it. Mr. P. made it,” she added. “His family brought him home yesterday evening to teach us that even at 101 years old, your future is not written.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.