“The impression I got from her chit-chat videos is that she was vehemently anti-”vax”.””
She had Covid over Thanksgiving in November. It is now January 9th. I doubt it was Covid that she died from unless she had long Covid.
I have a friend who is 72, he was fighting Covid for over a month, was in the hospital twice, fighting to get his O2 up. He said he was completely out of the woods the last I talked with him. He is in good shape, not obese or a smoker... clean living type.
I’ve known people who wound up suffering for many, many weeks, even needing oxygen for weeks after they went home from the hospital - usually people with comorbidities.
Like flu, it’s usually not the COVID that gets you directly. Complications are another story, though. A friend of my wife’s had COVID over 2 years ago. It triggered stuff in her lungs she’ll likely have problems with the rest of her life. She tried to do too much during our recent cold spell, taking care of her animals, and ended up in the hospital again for a couple days...
My younger brother had a similar story with flu, which induced pneumonia. He ended up with greatly reduced lung function (permanent damage) and now (several years later) advanced COPD. Basically an early death sentence.