coronavirus long island

Coronavirus News: 101-year-old woman survives COVID-19 on Long Island

Thursday, April 23, 2020

101-year-old woman from Long Island survives COVID-19

Stacey Sager has more on a 101-year-old woman from Long Island who survived COVID-19.

A 101-year-old woman is on the mend after a two-week battle with the COVID-19 novel coronavirus on Long Island.

When asked her secret to a long life, Rose Leigh-Manuel has a quick response.

"It's a combination of living right, having a good attitude, and always keeping in mind that this too shall pass," she said.

Leigh-Manuel is a resident of Catholic Health Services's Good Samaritan Nursing and Rehabilitation Care Center in Sayville.

She was feeling weak with a fever and chills before her positive diagnosis, but she fought back and beat the virus.

The centenarian is now full of smiles again, fully recovered and back in her room enjoying her favorite snack, vanilla-flavored Oreos.

"Everybody takes such good care of me," she said. "I'm so grateful."

She says an important part of her recovery was the support of her family, which includes four children, 17 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and several great-great-grandchildren.

"She fought, and she won," son Gary Leigh-Manuel said. "She's always been very independent, very strong. She was a single mother. My father had passed away in 1971."

He says his mother didn't retire until she was 95 years old and at one point was a fire department dispatcher.

"She's good in a crisis," he said.

But above all, she credits her faith.

"God is very good to me," she said. "He just doesn't want me yet."