Former Governor Discusses Falling Ill With COVID-19

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: David, I am so pleased to see you. We have been tracking your illness with you. And I just want to know how you are right now.

DAVID BEASLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: Well, it’s — I’m doing great. It was a few weeks of some tough go. Every time you and I get together on television, it’s always a bad story. But the good news is, I am feeling so much better. And I’m glad to have it behind me.

AMANPOUR: So, tell — just so that we can understand, because it’s rare to actually talk to those who’ve had it, how did you know you had got it? How did it manifest for the past several weeks?

BEASLEY: Well, about five weeks ago — I travel quite a bit in war zones, in complex areas, and donor capitals around the world. And so I was traveling throughout the Middle East, and I was meeting with leaders. And I actually did a couple tests just to make sure I was in fact negative, so I can meet with leaders without any concern, and they were negative. And then I traveled back to the United States and was still making some trips abroad. And I came back home about three weeks ago today, back to my home in South Carolina for the first time in many months, and that Friday evening, I started feeling a little bit not quite right. But I thought it was allergies, because the pollen is out among the (INAUDIBLE) in the South, and which was nothing unusual. And so I was thinking, ah, it must be that. And then Saturday, I started having some fever, and Sunday, aches and pains, but not severe. But Monday morning, I was feeling really good. So I thought, ah, it must have been the allergies. But knowing that I meet a lot of people and knowing that I need to be extra careful, I went to the hospital to get checked, tested again. And this time, it came back positive. And, thankfully, I had quarantined myself, isolated myself. And now I have been in isolation now for three weeks. And I’m now over it, which is great. But it never got really bad. It would get good for a day or two. And then I would have like a recycle of a little bit of fever, a little bit of ache, a little bit of sore throat, but it was never severe. And then I had some chest congestion after about a week. And that gravely concerned us, because then you can get in your — into the lungs and pneumonia and problems like that.

AMANPOUR: Yes. Yes.

BEASLEY: But thank the good lord, I’m doing good. I’m healthy, and back on — back in the saddle and trying to help people around the world now.