“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl said on the broadcast Sunday night that she battled a case of coronavirus that left her “really scared” and hospitalized.
The veteran journalist who has been with “60 Minutes” for nearly three decades opened by sharing a tenet of journalism: “Don’t become part of the story.”
“But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one million Americans who did become part of it,” she revealed.
Stahl said other coworkers at the show had also tested positive for COVID-19 — some of whom had no symptoms and some of whom “had almost every symptom you can imagine.”
Stahl was in the latter group.
“After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia, and really scared, I went to the hospital,” she said.
The staff there was “overworked” and “nearly overwhelmed,” Stahl said.
But “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,” she said. “In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs.”
Stahl concluded by thanking that “valiant army in scrubs and masks.”
“They were fulfilling a mission, answering the call. Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now,” she said. “Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration — and in some cases, our lives.”
