Claire: ‘I was fatigued and f luey for months after virus’

BROADCASTER Claire Byrne has warned that Covid-19 ‘certainly lingers’ as she opened up yesterday about the long-term effects the virus has had on her health.

The RTÉ host was diagnosed with coronavirus in March, which led to her entering quarantine and presenting her television show Claire Byrne Live from a shed in her garden.

Speaking about how she is feeling a few months down the line, she warned that the virus is ‘not something you want to get’.

‘I have experienced a new allergy, which I’m looking into at the moment to see what that’s about,’ she said.

‘Apart from that, I’m fine, but what

I would say is, it took a long time to recover from Covid-19, even though I suppose, what I had was a mild dose.

‘I still had fatigue for quite a long time. I felt very fluey and I had respiratory symptoms such as congestion and so on. Not for weeks, but it went on for a couple of months.’

She continued: ‘I think a lot of people who have had the virus have said this is not something you want to get. Of course it isn’t, but it’s just good, I think, to make people aware that it is not a simple condition that you get over in ten days or a week. ‘It lingers, it certainly lingers.’ Meanwhile, her fellow RTÉ host Ryan Tubridy said he was shocked when he was diagnosed with the virus as his symptoms were so mild.

‘I think it’s important to say first and foremost that I had the lower end of it. I had the persistent cough and it never developed into so much as a headache or a flu-like symptom,’ he said.

‘I have been told by people I work with that I looked quite shook around that time, which I take as a caring compliment… I think I probably had it a little bit worse than I remembered.’