Coronavirus: CNN presenter Richard Quest tests positive for COVID-19

CNN presenter Richard Quest has contracted the new coronavirus, he announced on Tuesday after being tested over the weekend.

“I have caught coronavirus. I am blessed in that I have a few symptoms – just a cough,” Quest wrote in a tweet. “I am saving my prayers for those less fortunate. Stay in. And protect lives.”

He also appeared in a video statement on the CNN website saying he is “grateful and thankful” to not have any of the “horrific symptoms” including shortness of breath and night-sweats.

Quest, who lives in New York, said he will continue hosting his show Quest Means Business but will “take it easy” if his condition worsens.

“I’m not a fool, nor am I a hero,” he told viewers. “But at the moment, I feel fine, I feel good and there are important things that you and I need to talk about every night.”

Last month, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who also lives in New York, tested positive for the virus.

Cuomo, who hasn’t yet fully recovered according to a Los Angeles Times report, said that before he was diagnosed, he had been exposed to people who subsequently tested positive.

The state of New York has the highest number of confirmed cases in the United States with 242,786 cases so far and 13,869 deaths, according to a Google tally. The virus has infected 799,456 people so far in the US and has killed 42,604 people.