Rita Wilson Talks About Her Coronavirus Experience
Rita Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks were one of the first celebrities to announce that they were positive for the coronavirus. The two of them have since recovered and now she has shared details about that experience.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wilson shared her story on the Tuesday episode of “CBS This Morning.” While both her and Hanks are recovered enough to be interviewed and even host an episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Wilson said the days spent with the disease were miserable.
Just like actress Ali Wentworth, Wilson said she began feeling aches in her body that were bad enough for her to not want to be touched. By the ninth day of the illness, Wilson said her fever had reached as high as 102 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius. Wilson also says she lost her sense of taste and smell, symptoms that other confirmed cases have also reported. Her husband was only slightly lucky in that his fever wasn’t as high and that he retained his sense of taste and smell.
CNN also reports that Wilson was prescribed the drug chloroquine, which Trump has been touting as a potential cure but which scientists have cautioned against using. Even Wilson herself is unsure as to whether the drug worked or her fever just subsided coincidentally. She also talked about getting side effects like muscle weakness and vertigo.
She says that she and her husband have told that they are now immune to COVID-19, and Wilson says that both of them have donated their blood to research so their antibodies may help develop a vaccine.
During her time in quarantine, Wilson also made a video of herself rapping “Hip Hop Hooray” by Naughty by Nature, which the original artists ended up loving. The two of them have teamed up for a remix that will benefit MusiCares’ COVID-19 relief fund.
Aside from Wilson, Hanks, and Wentworth, several celebrities have also tested positive for coronavirus. Singer Marianne Faithfull, “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, television host Andy Cohen, singer Placido Domingo, and actors Idris Elba, Olga Kurylenko, Aaron Tveit, and Kristofer Hivju.
Wilson and Hanks’s recovery may provide hope for people around the world, even as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to rise. According to the Apr. 14 situation report by the World Health Organization, there are now 1,844,863 confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world. The number of COVID-19 fatalities is now at 117,021 people.
In the United States, Apr. 14 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are currently 579,005 confirmed coronavirus cases. People that have died from the coronavirus in the States now number at 22,252 people.