Rita Wilson opens up on coronavirus ordeal and warns of treatment side effects

Actress Rita Wilson has opened up on her coronavirus ordeal and warned of the “extreme” side effects she suffered from medicine used to treat the illness.

Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks were the first high-profile celebrities to publicly state they had tested positive for Covid-19, announcing the news via an Instagram post on March 12.

The couple were in Australia, where Hanks was working on an Elvis Presley biopic. They have both since made a full recovery.

In her first interview since being diagnosed, Wilson, 63, spoke to The Talk with Gayle King and detailed her symptoms.

“I felt extremely achy, uncomfortable, didn’t want to be touched, and then the fever started,” Wilson said, adding she suffered from “chills like I never had before.”

Wilson, an actress and singer, said her fever reached its highest temperature about nine days following the positive test results, saying it “got close to” 39C.

She also revealed she had been given the drug chloroquine, which is usually used to prevent and treat malaria and is being studied as a possible Covid-19 treatment.

However, Wilson is not sure what impact it had on her. She said: “I can only tell you that I don’t know if the drug worked or if it was just time for my fever to break, but my fever did break.”

And Wilson warned the drug had “extreme side effects”. She felt “completely nauseous” and could not walk. “My muscles felt very weak,” she said.

“I think people have to be very considerate about that drug,” the star added. “We don’t really know if it’s helpful in this case.”

Wilson also said Hollywood star Hanks, also 63, had less severe symptoms than her.

The couple is now home in Los Angeles.