Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway opened up about her late husband Derek Draper’s battle with Covid-19 as she admitted there was one thing she “didn’t know” about the condition
TV presenter Kate Garraway admitted she “didn’t know” her husband would change forever before his tragic death after a four-year battle with Covid-19.
Kate said that it was a big shock to realise Covid was not “binary” and there was a third option besides living or dying. Her husband Derek Draper contracted the killer disease at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, and he was quickly placed into a coma.
The Good Morning Britain star, 58, became her husband’s carer after his release from hospital until his death in January 2024.
She said she didn’t realise there was a chance he would be released from hospital but would be a different person to the one who entered.
Kate told Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast: “So that I didn’t know. When he got into the ambulance he said: ‘You’re definitely going to see me again.’ What I didn’t know was the Derek in the form that got into the ambulance, I wouldn’t see again. And obviously neither did he.
“So much of Derek came back. I felt incredibly fortunate I had the chance to be a carer and care for him, it’s a wonderful honour. Tough as heck but I always felt incredibly lucky that I had those five years.”
Kate married political lobbyist Derek in 2005 and the couple shared two children – Darcey, 19, and 16-year-old William, nicknamed Billy.
When he was first admitted to hospital in the first wave of Covid-19 patients, she didn’t know there was a third option besides living or dying – and it’s one she lived with for almost four years before Derek’s eventual death aged 56.
She told the podcast: “I guess what I didn’t realise was is that, and I don’t think anyone was at the time. So I thought Covid, I think we all approached Covid as binary.
“You either lived or died, and it was so horrific because so many were dying before they could even get to hospital.
“And there was no medicine, ways to mitigate at that point. The medical profession did everything they could with a brand new virus that was a killer.
“But I thought it was binary. What became extraordinary to manage when he began to come out, when they tried to bring him out of the coma, we realised there was a third option. Life would be changed forever and you still lived.”
Kate explained that even medical professionals didn’t realise how seriously Covid-19 could impact patients back in 2020.
Everyone thought it was “about the lungs” but it can have an effect on every cell in the body – patients’ livers, kidneys, brains, lungs and so on.
She continued: “We know it now because we know there are millions of people with long Covid. Sometimes they feel a little bit out of breath, sometimes they feel a little bit fatigued.
“And some people are in wheelchairs and not walking still.”
Kate was a contestant on the inaugural series of Celebrity Traitors earlier this year. She also talked about the possibility of finding love again but said she’s not sure if “anyone would want her”.
She joked: “Talk to your mates, find out if any of their dads are single, that’s your task Jamie.”
