CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta appealed to primetime host Chris Cuomo Wednesday, telling him it’s “OK to take a day off” from his show while he recovers from the coronavirus.
“This was significant for you, Chris,” Gupta said after Cuomo confirmed his fever the previous night had caused such rigors he’d chipped a tooth. “I’m just going to say, as well, you know, we talk about abdication of duty. I don’t want to abdicate my duty. I know you’re a warrior but you’re allowed to take a day off.”
He continued, doubling down on the point: “We love you. We think about you and it’s OK to, you know … I know you’re dreaming about this stuff. You’re fully engaged but it’s OK to take a day off.”
During the opening of his 9 p.m. ET show — which he’s hosting while quarantined in his basement, away from his wife and children — Cuomo admitted to feeling worse than the previous day. He revealed that he’d had a fever so bad he hallucinated that he saw his late father, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, as well as friends from college.
“You were right when you told me I would see a different side of this once the virus took root and that certainly came last night,” Cuomo admitted to his physician colleague, who acknowledged warning him of the rigors to come after Tuesday’s show ended.
Gupta isn’t the only CNNer to react publicly and emotionally to the primetime anchor’s diagnosis: Fellow primetime anchor Don Lemon cried Tuesday night when discussing Cuomo’s diagnosis. Over on competing network Fox News, primetime anchors Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, too, offered well wishes to their competitor Tuesday night.
A representative for Cuomo didn’t immediately return a request for comment on whether there are any plans to postpone Thursday’s show, but the journalist did call into a press briefing held by his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the afternoon. He repeated his story of hallucinating that he saw their father and described another dream vision: His brother the current governor, in a ballerina costume, expressing a desire to wave a wand and make the pandemic go away.
The Cuomo brothers’ banter continues.
Watch above via CNN.