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Chris Cuomo Says He's Lost 13 Pounds in 3 Days From COVID-19 Symptoms

By Zach Seemayer‍ 10:09 PM PDT, April 2, 2020

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Chris Cuomo is still suffering some serious symptoms during his battle with the coronavirus.

The TV newsman's nightly show, Cuomo Prime Time, was preempted on Thursday by a CNN town hall special about the coronavirus outbreak, but he still joined fellow CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and opened up about the physical impact COVID-19 has had on his body in a matter of days.

"I've lost 13 pounds in three days," Cuomo revealed. "Now, I'm a big guy, I started off at 230 pounds.... [but] I'm eating and drinking constantly. I'm just sweating it out, and it's just the sickness."

He also explained how his symptoms, particularly his fever, seem to get worse as the day wears on.

"The beast comes at night," Cuomo said. "My fever has gone up a couple of degrees in like the last 30 minutes. Nights are tough."

"It is responsible journalism to say that 80 percent of people who get this, statistically, wind up OK, meaning they don't get a hospital, they get through it," Cuomo continued. "It is not humanly responsible, though, from an ethical perspective."

The veteran journalist went on to explain to anyone watching who is still underestimating the effects of the coronavirus, "You suffer when you have this at home, unless you are ridiculously lucky, statistically, and maybe karmically as well."

Cuomo, who was officially diagnosed with COVID-19 on Tuesday, went on to reflect what he's learned from having a serious case of the illness, and what has worked for him when it comes to dealing with the symptoms.

"Chicken soup is not just anecdotal," he shared. "That has worked for me, I believe."

He said he's also been "counseled to try to endure fever as much as I can, because the fever is the body's fighting mechanism. [And] I've also learned there is so much BS on the internet that are being sold as cures. Fake pills, fake tonics... I think we have to be very careful about people preying on desperation."

Cuomo is working out of his basement, where he is still in quarantine to stay separated from his wife and their children.

Earlier this week, he opened up to Gupta even more about the severity of his fever, and explained, "I've never seen anything like it… I've had a fever, you've had a fever, right? But 102, 103, 103-plus, that wouldn't quit. It was like somebody was beating me like a pinata."

"I was shivering so much ... I chipped my tooth. I was up all night. I was hallucinating. My dad was talking to me," added Cuomo, whose late father, Mario Cuomo, died in 2015. "I was seeing people from college, people I haven't seen in forever. It was freaky what I lived through last night, and it might happen again tonight. Doctors said it could happen, like, five or eight times."

For more on Cuomo's diagnosis and his battle with the coronavirus, see the video below.