ESPN broadcaster Doris Burke tested positive for COVID-19, but she said she is now symptom-free.
Burke shared the information Friday on “The Woj Pod” with ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Burke said it took eight days for her test results to come back.
She began feeling symptoms associated with the coronavirus on March 11. Burke was broadcasting a game in Dallas that night when news broke that the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus, which triggered a suspension of the NBA season that kicked in after the Mavericks beat the visiting Denver Nuggets 113-97.
Before the game, Burke recalled her mindset was, “‘Man, I am so tired right now and my head is pounding.’ And looking back, those were my symptoms. And we’ve heard so much about shortness of breath, fever, tightness in your chest, chills, body aches, etc. … That really was my primary symptom throughout this was this extraordinary fatigue.”
When she returned home, she decided to have a test at a Philadelphia hospital on March 17 after barely being able to get out of bed for four days, but a long time passed before she finally received the results.
“I started to believe, even though my symptoms did not seem to line up with the typical symptoms, I believed, given the nature of my profession, the number of people I encounter, that I did in fact have exposure to the virus,” she said.
Burke told Wojnarowski regarding her subsequent recovery, “I’m so incredibly thankful to be feeling well.”
—Field Level Media
