ENGLISH Health Minister Nadine Dorries said confirmation she had coronavirus was like “iced water trickling down my spine”.
Dorries is self-isolating at home after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this week. She wrote in the Sunday Times of the diagnosis being a “game-changer” as she had not been abroad or come into contact with anyone who had.
The Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire also wrote of her fears for her 84-year-old mother who “is not in the best of health”. Dorris said: “I stopped listening for a second as the thought flew through my mind: my mum is going to get it and it’s my fault. I had brought Covid-19 home from Westminster and had unwittingly passed it on to her.
READ MORE: Coronavirus tests to stop in Scotland, says chief medical officer
“It felt as though the clocks had stopped. I knew that everything was about to change and I wanted to hold time where it stood.”
Dorries said her symptoms included a persistent cough, achy muscles and intermittent
night sweats. The politician and author, best known by many for her stint on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here, advised people to think of everything as being contaminated.
She said: “Every lift button, shopping-trolley handle, wait-button on a zebra crossing – and every cup in a cafe. Wash your hands for
20 seconds. Carry hand-sanitiser and use it over and over. Resist the urge to hug or shake hands with anyone.”
READ MORE: Scotland does NOT plan to ask over-70s to self-isolate
Dorries also urged people not to stockpile items such as toilet rolls, tweeting: “Having lived through coronavirus, can I assure everyone that at no time during the seven days we were in isolation at home did we even once have to face a secondary crisis and run out of loo roll.”
Meanwhile, Hollywood star Tom Hanks thanked “the helpers” as he and his wife Rita Wilson remained in isolation in Australia after being diagnosed with coronavirus.
Hanks shared a photo of a stuffed kangaroo and koala and a piece of toast thickly spread with Australian staple Vegemite. He wrote: “Thanks to the Helpers. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. Hanx.”
Hanks announced earlier this week that he and Wilson, both 63, had tested positive. They are in Australia as Hanks prepares to film Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic, in which he plays the singer’s manager Colonel Tom Parker.
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