Chris Cuomo’s “freaky” battle with the coronavirus is finally won.
On Monday’s episode of “Cuomo Prime Time,” the CNN anchor revealed he had tested negative for COVID-19 nearly a month after announcing his diagnosis. And he has antibodies, a development that seemed to perplex the TV host more than it comforted him.
“I have both antibodies — the short-term one and the long-term one. So I’m lucky, right?” he said, broadcasting from his home under lockdown. “Or not. Why do we question it now? Well, the World Health Organization issued a warning, saying, ‘Chill out with these immunity passports. We don’t know what the antibodies mean — if they mean anything.’”
The WHO update that Cuomo referenced states, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
The newscaster then deferred to his favorite medical expert, doctor and CNN colleague Sanjay Gupta, who posited that “presumably, you’re going to have some protection against” the virus, but the effectiveness of the antibodies still needs to be determined.
“I have become a doubter, and I’ll tell you why,” Cuomo said. “I clear the CDC threshold a while ago. I do my 14 days. … Then I get my test back weeks later, and I have … the first antibody your body makes, which is a suggestion that you just started fighting this virus.
“Well, how could I have just started fighting it when I was cleared 2 1/2 weeks ago? You see what I’m saying? It’s confusing. Were they right then? Or are they right now?”
Although Gupta admitted Cuomo’s journey from diagnosis to early antibodies did “seem a bit long,” he predicted the journalist was “right at that curve where … the early term is disappearing and the long-term antibody is now coming in.”
“My guess is, if you tested again in a week, you’d probably have the long-term antibody in your system and probably not the short term,” Gupta added.
Now that Cuomo has conquered the coronavirus, he faces a new challenge: giving blood to the cause. Last week, his CNN colleague Brooke Baldwin also tested negative after having recovered from the respiratory illness and vowed to donate her platelets as well.
“I have never given blood in my life, and we both know why: It’s because I’m a wuss,” Cuomo told Gupta. “But I am going to do it, although the likelihood I faint is, like, 110%. But I’m going to do it. … If they want the blood, I’m going to give it to them because that is the best thing I’ve heard of so far in terms of what I can do to help as someone who was sick.”
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