Tom Hanks' wife-actress Rita Wilson reveals she still has COVID-19 antibodies
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Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were probably the first high-profile celebrities to have contracted the coronavirus when the pandemic had just become known to the world.
Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were probably the first high-profile celebrities to have contracted the coronavirus when the pandemic had just become known to the world. Now, nearly nine months after battling COVID-19, Rita Wilson reveals that she still has antibodies for the coronavirus.
Rita Wilson, an actress-singer, revealed to Jimmy Kimmel, "I still have antibodies!" when the host said, "I feel like you're the only person I don't have to worry about because you must be brimming with antibodies right now.”
Rita Wilson explained that she’s tested "every couple of months" as part of a UCLA program and suggested that others in the study also still have antibodies.
"They test us and so far we still have them," she said. "They diminish as you get farther away from your infection, but they're still there helping us out."
Till date it’s not clear for how long people are infected with the novel coronavirus. However, recent studies have indicated that those who recovered are likely protected for a long period of time.
The UCLA study found that antibodies in 34 people with the coronavirus on average dropped to half of where they started over a two-and-a-half-month period. Still, experts cautioned that those findings are limited and may have been focused on people with mild illness. It's unknown whether Wilson is involved in the same study.
Both Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks were diagnosed with COVID-19 in Australia in March, where they had traveled for work. They stayed in isolation for 14 days in a hospital on the Gold Coast before returning to the US, where they continued social distancing.