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Kate Garraway breaks down as she updates 'GMB' viewers on husband's coronavirus battle

Kate Garraway fought back tears as she said she doesn’t know if her husband Derek Draper will ever recover after battling the coronavirus.

The presenter returned to ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday to update fans on Draper, who has been in a coma for 10 weeks after contracting the illness.

The emotional star said Draper was now “COVID free” but that the virus had “wreaked extraordinary damage on his body”.

Derek Draper and Kate Garraway. (PA)
Derek Draper and Kate Garraway. (PA)
File photo dated 10/01/08 of Kate Garraway and her husband Derek Draper. Kate Garraway has shared an update on the condition of her husband, who is being treated in hospital for the coronavirus, to say he "remains in intensive care and is still very ill".
File photo dated 10/01/08 of Kate Garraway and her husband Derek Draper. Kate Garraway has shared an update on the condition of her husband, who is being treated in hospital for the coronavirus, to say he "remains in intensive care and is still very ill".

“We don't know if he can recover from that,” said the 53-year-old, who has son Billy, 10, and daughter Darcey, 14, with Draper.

Read more: Kate Garraway's 'GMB' colleagues voice support after husband is hospitalised

Speaking to GMB colleagues Ben Shephard and Ranvir Singh, Garraway said it was a “miracle “that her husband was still alive and that she was hoping for another one.

She said: “He’s still with us, he has fought the most extraordinary battle and I hate the idea of fighting a battle because it is a battle, but the fact he’s still holding on, I hate the idea that other people haven’t fought hard enough.

“I’m just so grateful he’s still here.

“But he’s very, very sick… it’s affected him from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.”

The presenter said she still has “huge hope and massive positivity”.

“I’ll never give up on that, because Derek’s the core of my life and our lives,” she said. “But at the same time, I have absolute uncertainty… and the doctors don’t know. One doctor said to me that he’s the worst affected person he’s had to treat that’s lived.”

“It’s an evil virus,” she said.

LONDON - OCTOBER 31:  (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK TABLOID NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 48 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME)  Kate Garraway and her husband Derek Draper arrive at the National Television Awards 2007, at the Royal Albert Hall on October 31, 2007 in London, England.  (Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
Kate Garraway and her husband Derek Draper arrive at the National Television Awards 2007. (Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)

Garraway went on: “The doctors talk in double negatives. You have to take comfort from the double negatives. They say ‘We can’t say he can’t recover, we don't know if he can recover and we don’t know how long it will take.’

“So from that you take terrible uncertainty and have to find good in it. You say to yourself, ‘There is hope and possibility’.”

The presenter said nobody knows how long it could take for Draper to recover.

“One doctor said it could be up to a year which feels unthinkable, but we are praying there will be progress before then,” she said.

Kate Garraway, alongside her husband Derek Draper and two children Darcey, 13, and Bill, 10, arrives back at Heathrow Airport after the 2019 series of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!
Kate Garraway, alongside her husband Derek Draper and two children Darcey and Billy, arrives back at Heathrow Airport after the 2019 series of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!

Garraway shared that Draper was taken to hospital in an ambulance in March after telling his children: “You’re the best children anyone could ask for, be good to Mum, look after her.”

Doctors decided to put him into a coma and beforehand he told Garraway: “I love you, I’m sorry I have to leave you.”

She told viewers: “He said, ‘You’ve saved my life’ - I think he thought I’d persuaded the doctors to put him in a coma, and he said ‘I think you’ve saved my life, I don’t mean just now, I mean being married to you and the children and everything’.”

Read more: Piers Morgan tests negative for the coronavirus

Garraway said she had been “overwhelmed” by the support she has received from friends and viewers since Draper became ill.

“You see a lot of really good in people in the midst of all this,” she said.

Garraway and Draper, 52, have been married since 2005