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Kate Garraway Finding Derek: Good Morning Britain Host Issues Warning After Husband's Long Covid

Joanna Freedman

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Kate Garraway Finding Derek: Good Morning Britain Host Issues Warning After Husband's Long Covid

Featured Image Credit: ITV

Good Morning Britain host, Kate Garraway, has spoken about the impacts of long Covid ahead of the release of her new documentary film, Kate Garraway: Finding Derek.

Discussing the film, which not only features footage from the beginning of 53-year-old Derek's hospitalisation, but also includes interviews with other families going through the worst, Kate, also 53, said: "It's coming up to a year [that] we've all been living with this.

"And this is something that I began making back in August - obviously then rather hoping that Derek and I would be chatting with you together and that more recovery had been possible.

"That hasn't been the case, and it is looking not just at what's happened to my family, but also to other families, and the very, very long tail that Covid has."

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She added: "I mean, obviously Derek is an extreme example, we don't want to scare people with what he's been through, but there are many other versions of it, and still not enough is known about the impact of it.

"Still when we think of long Covid, we tend to think of breathing long term problems, fatigue, anxiety and sort of post traumatic stress syndrome, but it is much more widespread than that.

"[The documentary is] very emotional".

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On the progressions that have been made since her husband went to hospital at the start of April, like vaccines and new treatments that have since emerged, Kate added: "Unfortunately, Derek was surfing the crest of a very grim wave.

"So he was always just in front of some of the incredible [progress]."

Kate Garraway's husband Derek is still in hospital one year on (Credit: PA Images)
Kate Garraway's husband Derek is still in hospital one year on (Credit: PA Images)

The conversation about the film comes as a trailer aired on ITV just days ago, showing the heartbreaking state her husband was in after contracting the virus.

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In a first clip for her new ITV documentary, Finding Derek, which airs later this month, Kate can be seen saying: "Derek is the sickest person the team of doctors have treated that's lived.

"Is he going to be able to come back or will he be alive but no longer the person he was before?"

The screen then fades to black, and the message sombrely reads: "One year later, Derek is still in hospital."

Derek was placed in a coma on April 5th last year, in the hope it would help him defeat the virus.

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Derek Draper was put in a coma almost a year ago (Credit: ITV)
Derek Draper was put in a coma almost a year ago (Credit: ITV)

While Derek hasn't had Covid since summer, the disease ravaged his body, leaving him with kidney failure, damage to his liver and pancreas and heart failure.

The former Labour lobbyist has holes in his lungs as a result of his battle with bacterial pneumonia and several other infections.He's also lost a staggering eight stone in weight.

Doctors have since stopped the drugs that were keeping him in a coma - even causing him to open his eyes - but he remains in a state of minimal consciousness.

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A synopsis for the documentary reads: "As Derek, who was hospitalised in March 2020 with the virus, remains in hospital with severe health issues, Kate also meets survivors of the disease and discusses the somewhat unknown, longer-term effects of the virus.

"As Kate lays bare in the film, her family, along with many others who have suffered the effects of the virus, is now facing the reality of adjusting to a very different way of life to the one they lived before the pandemic hit."

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Speaking in a recent Times interview, Kate - who has children Darcy, 14 and Billy, 11 with Derek - elaborated on her husband of 16-years' condition, and discussed the heartbreaking fact he is "unlikely" to ever make a full recovery.

To give some idea of how bad his condition is, doctors told her there is a chance he could make enough of a recovery to one day "hold a hairbrush".

"The very worst moment was when they said he could be locked in for ever. And I just thought, this is a horror story," she said.

"I don't know if he'll ever have any kind of life again. We just don't know. The change in his body is shocking."

Kate Garraway: Finding Derek airs next Tuesday (30th) on ITV.

Topics: Good Morning Britain, TV News, TV & Film, GMB

Joanna Freedman
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