Coronavirus
Two Sisters Die from Separate Pandemics More Than 100 Years Apart
Two sisters have died from two separate pandemics – 102 years apart.
In Austin, Texas, 96-year-old Selma Esther Ryan died from the coronavirus – just three days after celebrating her birthday. Her sister Esther died at 5 years old during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The two sisters never met each other.
“On April 3, I got a call from the facility that five residents, including my mother, were running a temperature,” said Ryan's daughter, Vicki.
“Over the next five days, I watched through the window as she got sicker and sicker. It was so hard to not be with her. Her 96th birthday was April 11. Our family gathered outside her window, but it was obvious that something terrible had happened.”
According to Vicki, her mother did not undergo a test for COVID-19 until after she died, as reported by KXAN. She said the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted the test and confirmed the positive infection.
Sisters die 102 years apart, each from global pandemics https://t.co/4TROxsgW8s
— KRON4 News (@kron4news) April 17, 2020
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the Spanish flu infected around 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population. At least 50 million people died worldwide.
COVID-19, on the other hand, has infected more than 2.4 million people and killed at least 165,200 worldwide.
KXAN reported that “unlike COVID-19, which is deadliest for older people, the Spanish flu was just as deadly for healthy people and for children under 5 years old.”
Up Next:
