'60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl says she's well again after fighting off coronavirus
“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl says she's feeling better after a battle with COVID-19 that left her hospitalized for a week.
“One of the rules of journalism is ‘Don’t become part of the story,'” Stahl said at the end of Sunday's broadcast. “But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more than one million Americans who did become part of it.”
The veteran journalist, 78, said she was "really scared" as she spent two weeks in bed with pneumonia before going to the hospital.
Once there, she said, "I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff; every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment I arrived until the moment days later when I was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers."
Stahl said she wasn't the only staffer at the CBS show to test positive for the novel coronavirus, but that it hit everyone differently. "One COVID-positive '60 Minutes' co-worker had almost no symptoms, while others had almost every symptom you can imagine. Each case is different," she said.
And Stahl is not the only television journalist to test positive for the virus. CNN's Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin both have talked about their illnesses. Cuomo continued to conduct his prime-time show from his basement as he recovered. ABC's George Stephanopoulos had it, too, but reported only mild symptoms.
In her closing Sunday, Stahl paid tribute to medical staff and the care she received: "They were fulfilling a mission, answering the call. Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now. Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration – and in some cases, our lives."
More than 1.15 million people in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Sunday night; 67,674 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lesley Stahl of '60 Minutes' beats coronavirus, thanks medical workers
