Britain’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer believes she had coronavirus: Jenny Harries reveals she was ‘knocked out’ during ‘very unpleasant 10 days’
- Dr Jenny Harries said she didn’t have some of the respiratory symptoms
- Said she knew she was unwell and was out of action for around 10 days
- Followed advice issues to the whole of the UK in order to recover from virus
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries has revealed she had coronavirus and said it was a ‘very unpleasant experience’.
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly this morning on Good Morning Britain she said she didn’t have some of the respiratory symptoms.
Dr Harries said she recovered by following the medical advice that has been issued to the whole of the UK.
She added: ‘I’m usually very fit and healthy. I was really very knocked off probably for about a week and very grateful to my children for looking after me.’
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly this morning Dr Jenny Harries revealed she has had the coronavirus
Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries (pictured above on April 19) has revealed she had coronavirus
Asked after how long she felt well enough to return to work, Dr Harries said: ‘Obviously we absolutely need to follow our own advice and the advice is after seven days, if you no longer have symptoms, apart from potentially a bit of a cough which persists, then you should be fine to come back to work.
‘Now in my case I was probably off for about 10 days. I knew I was unwell, but in fact the offness was more to do with the fact that I hadn’t been eating and was generally quite frail – I didn’t have persistent symptoms beyond that point.’
Dr Harries stands in for her boss, Prof Chris Whitty, when he is unavailable to chair press conferences being held for journalists to inform members of the public on the coronavirus.
At the end of March Prof Whitty decided to self-isolate after developing mild symptoms and returned to work on April 6.
Speaking to Lorraine (above) she also said having the virus was an ‘unpleasant experience’ before talking about PPE and face masks for the public
Prof Whitty will have been in close contact with Dr Harries.
He had also been in contact with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, both of whom contracted the virus.
Prof Whitty self isolated days after it was announced that Mr Johnson had the illness.
Commenting on the fact that many doctors and nurses have been forced to work without adequate PPE, Dr Harries said the coronavirus pandemic is ‘entirely new for all of us’.
‘So there is learning and there is review which needs to happen all the time and that applies to all the evidence we collect and all of our issues to do with managing PPE and PPE needs of our frontline staff, and indeed the testing.
‘It is so important our frontline staff have the right PPE. One of my personal slight frustrations is there is a lot of information out there which we can perhaps use to support them better, so understanding in detail.’
On the growing debate on whether or not members of the public should wear face masks, she added that it was important that the public left the supplies to front line workers.
‘For the average member of the public… it’s not quite as simple as just wearing a mask or not. The other thing is what mask are you wearing and how would you wear it?’