Comedian, actor and syndicated radio host D.L. Hughley announced he has tested positive for coronavirus after collapsing onstage while performing in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday night, according to multiple reports.
While performing Friday night at Zanies Comedy Club before a sold-out crowd, Hughley, 57, suddenly struggled to speak before going limp.
His manager rushed to catch him before he fell off his seat entirely, but he needed help to carry Hughley offstage.
Hughley was taken to St. Thomas Hospital where initial reports came out that he was treated for exhaustion. But reports about him learning that he was positive for COVID-19 came shortly after.
On a video posted to Hughley’s Facebook account, he told everyone that he was tested for COVID-19 and learned that he was asymptomatic, showing no symptoms whatsoever for the virus.
#ThankYouForYourPrayers #TeamDL pic.twitter.com/dSQiNtsgMr
— DL Hughley (@RealDLHughley) June 21, 2020
After hearing this report, Zanies has closed their doors and will be completing a comprehensive cleaning process conducted by a specialist.
Zanies also encouraged each of their attendees for both nights to contact Metro Health if they feel some risk of exposure from being in attendance either night.
“I was what they call asymptomatic,” Hughley said in his Twitter post. “I didn’t have flu-like symptoms, I didn’t have shortness of breath, I didn’t have difficulty breathing, I didn’t have a cough, I didn’t have a low-grade fever. I still don’t have a fever. I didn’t have a loss of smell or taste, apparently, I just lost consciousness.”
Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is one of its biggest mysteries. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reminded the public of… the distinction between asymptomatic patients, who never develop symptoms, and presymptomatic patients, who go on to develop symptoms later in the course of the disease.
“The majority of transmission that we know about is that people who have symptoms transmit the virus to other people through infectious droplets,” Van Kerkhove, Maria, the WHO’s technical lead on the Covid-19 pandemic said. “But there are a subset of people who don’t develop symptoms, and to truly understand how many people don’t have symptoms, we don’t actually have that answer yet.”
Van Kerkhove’s remarks on Tuesday came at a WHO question-and-answer session aimed at explaining what was known and unknown about how the virus spreads.
Hughley said he will be going back to his hotel room to quarantine for two weeks after leaving the hospital.
“Well thank you for your prayers and your well wishes and a few more of them wouldn’t hurt, so hopefully I won’t develop symptoms. Maybe this is as bad as it gets,” he said.
His credits include “The D.L. Hughley Show,” “The Hughleys,” “Soul Plane” and “The Comedy Get Down.”