Selfisolating Susanna
As the Coronavirus crisis continues, GMB’s Susanna Reid found herself confined to the house for at least 14 days…
Susanna Reid was missing from the GMB sofa last week as she found herself caught up in the Coronavirus crisis.
‘I am currently well, but due to the new advice today I will be self-isolating for two weeks due to symptoms in my household. Stay well everyone,’ she tweeted.
The following morning, Piers joked: ‘I’ve heard some ways of avoiding working with me, but this is ridiculous.’
Lord Sugar, Piers’ ‘frenemy’, joined in the banter on Twitter, asking for Piers to ‘self-isolate now Susanna is at risk from the virus’, while one quickwitted viewer put on social media, ‘If he ate a humble virus, I wouldn’t shed a tear.’
Jokes aside, Susanna’s decision followed the press conference given by the Prime Minister, in which he shared new guidelines: Anyone who has a member of their household showing symptoms of the virus – also known as COVID-19 – should stay at home for two weeks.
Susanna called in to the breakfast show via Skype to explain her situation. She shared the news with her copresenters Piers and Charlotte Hawkins that one of her three teenage sons had a persistent cough – one of the main symptoms.
Poor Susanna, 49, who lives in London where the virus is spreading particularly fast, revealed she met her mum, Sue, for lunch before quarantining – and is terrified she’s passed on the virus. She said, ‘Have I already put her at risk? The thought is agonising.’
As for her own health, Susanna said, ‘I have a perfectly normal temperature, as do all of my children.
‘I don’t have a cough. I have no symptoms. I’m feeling fatigued, I feel one hundred per cent healthy. Before the advice changed yesterday,
I would have come into work. Then, the advice changed.
‘There is no test for me to establish whether this is actually the virus, and I have huge doubts it is. I think it’s just a seasonal cough.’
Finally, she added: ‘I love my work. I love coming into work, I love the daily battles, I love interviewing, broadcasting to our viewers gives me so much pleasure and I’m going to miss that for two weeks.’
But Susanna is following sound World Health Organisaton advice, and both she and her ex partner and sons’ father, Dominic Cotton, are self-isolating at their separate London homes.
Sadly, it’s likely that many more will be soon be reporting they are in a similar situation…
‘Broadcasting gives me so much pleasure, I’m going to miss that for two weeks’