Yahoo News Chris Cuomo Says He’s Tested Positive For The Coronavirus; Brother Andrew Cuomo Talks About Diagnosis Of “My Best Friend”
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CNN anchor Chris Cuomo said that he has tested positive for the coronavirus. He announced his diagnosis in a Twitter post Tuesday.
Cuomo made the announcement as his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was giving another press conference on the state’s response to the coronavirus crisis. The governor was interviewed by his brother on CNN on Monday night.
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“Soooo in these difficult times that seem to get more difficult and complicated by the day, I just found out that I am positive for corona virus,” Chris Cuomo wrote. “I have been exposed to people in recent days who have subsequently tested positive and I had a fever, chills and shortness of breath. I just hope I didn’t give it to the kids and Cristina. That would make me feel worse than this illness!”
Cuomo anchored his show, Cuomo Prime Time, from the basement in his home on Monday. He has been quarantined and will continue to do his shows from there.
“We will all beat this by being smart and tough and united!” he wrote.
On Monday night, his brother actually joked with him about staying at home from the CNN workplace.
On his Tuesday show on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel, Cuomo said, “You know, I knew it was just a matter of time, to be honest, because of how often I was exposed to people.”
He added, “I am fine. I am not the story. There are people who are in rough shape because of this, and we have got to deal with that.”
At his press conference Tuesday, Andrew Cuomo talked about how the virus was the “great equalizer” and announced that his brother had tested positive.
“He is going to be fine. He is young, in good shape, strong — not as strong as he thinks — but he will be fine,” he said. “But there is a lesson in this. He is an essential worker, a member of the press, so he has been out there. If you go out there, the chance that you have been infected is very high.”
He added: “He is really a sweet, beautiful guy. He is my best friend. My father was always working so it was always me and Chris.”
He recalled how his brother went to law school but “he never really had a desire to practice law.” He said when Chris Cuomo was 26 and working at a law firm, he told his brother that he wanted to be a journalist. Andrew Cuomo tried to tell him that it was “too late,” but that Chris went ahead. “He went to work for Fox TV, which is a whole separate conversation in the house, and then worked his way up and he’s at CNN and he does a beautiful job.” Andrew Cuomo joked that his brother told him that even his dog would not come downstairs.
The governor also talked about some of Chris Cuomo’s recent interactions and worries over their mother’s exposure to the virus.
“My mother was at his house [two weeks ago] and I said that is a mistake. Now, my mother is in a different situation. She is older and she is healthy, but I said, ‘You can’t have mom at the house,'” Andrew Cuomo said at his briefing. “And he said, ‘No, no — Mom is lonely. She wants to be in the house, she’s cooped up in the apartment.’ I said, ‘I feel bad that she is cooped up in her apartment too, but you bring her to your house and you expose her to a lot of things. … You could expose Mom to the virus.'”
He added, “Love is sometimes, needs to be a little smarter than just reactive, and we had a whole discussion. In truth, he’s informed, I am informed. Was that dangerous or not dangerous?”
The governor signed the executive order Matilda’s Law — named for their mother — on March 20, mandating business closures and other social distancing measures, with the aim of protecting vulnerable populations in particular.
“If my brother still had my mother at his house, again out of love and comfort … she would have been doing what she wanted to do. He would have been doing what he wanted to do. It would have seemed great and harmless, but now we’d have a much different situation, because if he was exposed, chances are she would have been exposed, and then we’d have been looking at a very different situation than just my brother sitting in his basement for two weeks.
“Luckily we caught it early enough .. This virus is that insidious, and we have to keep that in mind.”
Chris Cuomo, on his SiriusXM show, said that his brother’s criticism “is not a completely invalid point. I did have her here because I thought it was safer for her out East than in the city alone, and he did convince me to move her to my sister in Westchester a few weeks ago.”
He added, “We have that luxury where there was someone else who could take her. So thank God she is not affected by this.”
A number of network anchors and personalities have been doing their shows from their homes in recent days, as news outlets take greater steps at social distancing and keep the number of in-studio personnel to a minimum.
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) March 31, 2020
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