Kate Garraway was left stunned after US president Donald Trump described his recent coronavirus diagnosis as a “blessing from god”.
The Good Morning Britain presenter looked exasperated as Trump’s comments were discussed on the ITV breakfast show on Thursday.
Kate’s husband, Derek Draper, has been in intensive care for six months due to complications caused by Covid-19, and was asked for her take on the president’s remark as someone whose life had been affected by the virus.
″‘Blessing from god’,” Kate began. “The idea of getting a fateful disease with no confident cure at the moment as any kind of blessing from god is such a strange thing to say.
“If I’m trying to be fair to him, does he mean it’s a blessing because he understands the impact? He’s now used himself as a trial for some of these things?
“That’s a nice way you’d hope he’d be saying it but it completely ignores the fact that those things that are tried and tested aren’t as accessible…”
She continued: “You can’t say something’s a blessing when more than 200,000 people in your own country and more than a million worldwide have died from it.
“It’s not the way we hope our elected representatives feel. You’d hope they can sense the horror before they actually go through it.”
Kate added: “The strong leadership position at this point would be to publicly follow the rules… and be a beacon of how to behave.”
In a video message outside the White House on Wednesday, the president said of Covid-19: “I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it.”
He also claimed that his use of the medication from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals had allowed him to experience first-hand how effective it could be.
Trump tested positive for Covid-19 last Thursday and spent three days hospitalised at Walter Reed medical centre before returning to the White House on Monday.
Kate previously criticised Trump for telling Americans earlier this week to not let the virus “dominate” or “let it take over your lives”.
“It is extraordinary. It’s heartbreaking, actually,” she said.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.