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BBC News presenter George Alagiah has shared a touching message with fellow
cancer patients after revealing he’s tested positive for Covid-19.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the broadcaster – who disclosed in 2018 that he’d been diagnosed with bowel cancer for the second time – was taking time out from the
BBC newsroom, out of concern that he would contract the virus.
During an interview featured in Tuesday’s News At Six, George revealed that he’d been diagnosed with coronavirus, but insisted: “If I can live with cancer, I can certainly live with Covid-19.”
He said: “I don’t want to trivialise because I seem to have had a mild dose, but actually, the very fact that we [cancer patients] are living with cancer I think gives us an edge.
“We’ve confronted those difficult, dark moments in our life. And in some ways, I think that we, those of us living with cancer, are stronger because we kind of know what it is like to go into something where the outcomes are uncertain.”George went on to tell presenter Sophie Raworth that his wife had also shown symptoms of the disease, explaining: “She’s been through it a little bit and it’s kind of lasted a bit longer. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for how this plays out in individuals.
“I don’t want to make light of it, because right now, Sophie, you and I both know there are people out there who are really finding this tricky, families going through a very anxious time.”
Sharing a message with those who have been affected by the pandemic, George said: “All I can say is, for myself, you know, who is vulnerable to an extent, I’ve come through, and I just hope that for all those people out there, they too come through.
“And you know, with basically the kind of medical staff we have in this country, most people are going to be able to come through.”
George added that while he was feeling “well” if not completely “back to normal”.READ MORE: Paul Chuckle Recovering After Being 'Laid Up' With Coronavirus: 'It's Not Nice' Robert Rinder ‘Still Ropey’ But 'On The Road To Recovery' After Battling Coronavirus Sam Smith Delaying And Renaming New Album Due To Coronavirus George previously underwent 17 rounds of chemotherapy to treat advanced bowel cancer in 2014, before returning to presenting duties on BBC News in 2015.
In January 2018, George revealed that the cancer had returned and took an additional year away from our screens, before returning to the BBC newsroom at the beginning of last year.
Back in November, he revealed he had requested not to be told his chances of surviving cancer when he was first diagnosed.
He told the Bowel Cancer
UK podcast: “I decided I didn’t want to know about the survival statistics. It’s a very unpredictable disease, you’re good one week and not the next, good chances one year and not the next.
“It took me about three to six months after my diagnosis, I called it getting to a place of contentment. I needed that.
“Just to kind of look at my life and say ‘whatever happens, do you know what, I’m content’.”