Why Fox 10 anchor John Hook was off-air for 3 weeks
When Fox 10 news anchor John Hook went missing from the newscast for a few weeks, viewers were understandably curious.
After all, his former co-anchor Kari Lake had been off the air for weeks and eventually left the station. Was Hook gone, too?
No, he wasn’t. Hook returned to the broadcast Monday.
The reason for his absence? He had COVID-19.
“It was weird, all of this stuff happening at once,” Hook told The Arizona Republic. “It was a lot.”
Hook said he was in San Antonio with his wife and daughter when two things happened: He got a scratchy throat, and the epic winter storm hit Texas. It was the former that concerned him.
“I was like, hmm, that’s weird,” he said.
The hotel where they were staying lost power and water, so they rented a car and drove the 16 hours back to Phoenix, Hook said.
“We got back and I was run down from all that and it was stressful as all get out,” he said. “And then on (Feb.) 18th I woke up and I just told my wife, ‘Something is not right. I do not feel right.’
“And I went and got tested. I was hoping he was not going to tell me I was positive, but he came back in and said yeah, you’ve got it. I was like, oh, man.”
‘It just started to really get worse and worse’
Once he was diagnosed, Hook progressively sicker, he said.
“The first day I thought, I’m going to walk 5 miles, even though I was positive. I’m like, I’m going to walk 5 miles, keep my lungs working. I don’t want to get into that stuff. And then the next day it was 4 miles, and by day three it’s like I can’t even walk, I’m in bed. It just started to really get worse and worse.”
He wound up being off the air three weeks.
Hook said he has no idea how he contracted
got
for
the virus, although he suspects he got it before the San Antonio trip. He said he has been careful throughout the pandemic.
“Oh yeah, yeah — mask wearing, hand sanitizing,” he said. “I’ve been kind of a nut about it.”
He had been particularly diligent because he has three teenagers at home, he said. “I mean we’ve tried to lock them down, but they’ve been going nuts. As time went on we kind of relaxed some of it. I was really careful, and the kids were like, ‘It’s no big deal’ and I was like, well it’s not for you, but I don’t want to get this.”
One of his sons contracted the virus after he did, Hook said. His wife and daughter, who rode back with him from Texas, have not.
Hook is adjusting to working without former co-anchor Lake
No replacement has been named for Lake, who left Fox 10 in early March, saying she didn’t like the direction news had taken recently.
Soon after she announced her departure, Lake — who had been involved with various controversies in recent years — appeared on the right-wing network
Newsmax
For Hook, the transition has been less bumpy than you might imagine.
“I’ve had a lot of practice at it,” Hook said of working without Lake. “Kari was on family leave for I think it was like three months or so. So she had been out. I was working with a lot of different people, and you start to kind of adjust. So it was a very interesting undocking, I would say, because I was already working with other people in our orbit here at Fox 10, and with other anchors.
“So you just kind of play through it. It’s very much like a football team. When somebody goes down, it’s next man up.”
Hook said he’s happy to be back in the studio, where health checks are done daily.
“I came back Monday of this week and I didn’t feel 100%,” he said. “I felt about 90%. But on the air I thought, that wasn’t bad, you got through it. That set now has become my default comfort zone.”
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