It has just been announced that “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos, who was an adviser to former President Bill Clinton, tested positive for coronavirus over the weekend. This came two weeks after his wife Ali Wentworth confirmed that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

Stephanopoulos revealed his diagnosis to his co-hosts on live TV on Monday morning, saying that it really came as “no surprise” that he got the virus. Unlike his wife, who has struggled while battling the disease, Stephanopoulos said that he has been asymptomatic. “I’ve never had a fever, never had chills, never had a headache, never had a cough, never had shortness of breath,” he said. “I’m feeling great.”

Close

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one in four people who test positive for coronavirus will show no symptoms, and ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said that new data out of Iceland shows that as much as 50% of people who are infected with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. “That is part of why it’s so difficult to contain this virus,” she said today. “We have to remember this virus is just about four months old so literally we’re learning things about the way it behaves and the way it transmits and causes disease every day.”

“One of the theories is it has to do with how much of the actual viral particles someone gets exposed to, that may be one part of it,” Ashton added. “Your immune reaction to the virus may be another part. Where the virus actually lodges…may have something to do with it.”

“In terms of the symptoms, it’s important for people to understand that when we say about 80% of the cases are mild, that doesn’t mean pleasant,” she explained. “Ali’s [Wentworth] case clinically was defined as mild because she didn’t need hospitalization but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.”

Dr. Ashton went on to say that experts are “still learning” whether people who have had coronavirus then develop antibodies to it. “Every time we’re exposed to a virus, yes, we develop some immune reaction or protection but when that occurs, how strong it is, how long that will last, all unknowns,” she said. “And remember there are slightly different strains of this virus, just like any other coronavirus or cold virus, and you could be exposed to a different one and get sick.”

Ashton applauded Stephanopoulos and his family for practicing an at “home version of social distancing” that has to be done when someone in a household tests positive for COVID-19. “The key is really isolation and you guys are doing it right,” she had said a few weeks ago. “We have to remember that everyone in the household who has been exposed should presume that they are infected until they’re out of a 14-day window of observation.”

“Isolating, keeping them out of the kitchen or wiping down surfaces in any common areas is really, really important,” Ashton explained. “That’s the key.” We are glad to see that Stephanopoulos seems to be having an easier time with coronavirus than many others, and we pray that he has a quick recovery from this.