Dr. Anthony Fauci called Chris Cuomo daily as the CNN anchor and his family battled the coronavirus.
“I have spoken to you, almost without exception, every day. And you have been calling me out of personal concern to make sure that I’m OK, that my wife was OK, my son was OK,” Cuomo said to Fauci on his primetime show Monday.
The Brooklyn-born infectious diseases expert said he has known Cuomo, the younger brother of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, since he “was almost a kid.”
“The fact is, you were going through some difficult times,” Fauci said, explaining why he was in constant contact with Cuomo.
“I cared about you, but I was worried about you. That’s the reason why I kept calling,” he added.
Cuomo, 49, revealed he had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 31. His wife Cristina caught the bug about two weeks later and their 14-year-old son, Mario, was also infected.
The family has now recovered.
Throughout the ordeal, Cuomo continued to broadcast from his basement.
“I don’t think that people were really experiencing or realizing how you were really sucking it up to look relatively normal,” said Fauci, 79.
“But when you finished the show, and we would start chatting at 11, 11:30 at night, you were wiped out… I was concerned.”
Cuomo said he won’t forget the kindness that Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, showed him.
“I appreciate it. I really do,” he said. “I want people to know who they’re getting in Tony Fauci. It’s not just TV, it’s not just 30 years of excellence in the scientific field, it’s the head and the heart that comes together in that body is the real deal, that’s why people believe in you.”
