Michelle Heaton has said she may be “over-thinking” having a cough after revealing she is in coronavirus self-isolation.
The TV personality and former Liberty X star announced on social media on Monday that she and her family are staying at home as a precautionary measure after one of their neighbours was confirmed to have Covid-19.
In her statement on Instagram, Heaton, 40, said that she, her husband and their two children, Faith and AJ, do not have symptoms.
'Coronavirus is a dry cough… Sneezes and snuffles are rarely coronavirus'.@DrHilaryJones shares his advice for @wonderwomanshel and others who are questioning whether they should be self-isolating.#Lorraine pic.twitter.com/SIWVtMGe34
— Lorraine (@lorraine) March 10, 2020
Appearing via video-link on ITV’s Lorraine on Tuesday, Heaton further discussed her reasons for self-isolation, adding that she has developed a cough.
She told the programme: “You can’t write this … basically a friend has come into contact with someone we know very well who has been confirmed.
“I do have a cough, maybe I’m over-thinking it. AJ had sniffles but kids get sniffles.
“It’s a really delicate and difficult situation.”
She added: “I suppose I’m as clueless as everybody else … I am taking that precaution because little AJ’s immune system, when he had meningitis, it was very weak.
“The last thing we want as parents is to bring anything into a school … as far as we are aware, we don’t have it.
“It’s just a precaution.”
Lorraine’s medical expert, Dr Hilary Jones, told Heaton that the majority of “coughs and colds and sneezes and runny noses at the moment are nothing to do with coronavirus”.
He said: “That’s a small number of cases, there are lots of colds and coughs circulating and actually coronavirus is a dry cough, that’s the distinction between the ordinary cold.
“Sneezes and snuffles are rarely coronavirus, and that’s an important thing because in the headlines today it says if you have a sniffle to isolate for seven days, and that doesn’t make any logical sense.”
Heaton had previously said that she spoke out about her family’s self-isolation because she wanted to set the record straight.
She had written: “I didn’t wanna scream about it to the world … if I could have avoided it I would have! However, I hate false information of hearsay & the only way to shut it down is to say it yourself and leave it there!
“But to the countless friends and people in our area, who’ve asked or reached out to us over the last 48 hrs with concern after seeing the men in their white suits outside our house … We are all good! Thank you.”
The current guidance states that people only need to self-isolate if they have been advised to by a medical professional or the 111 online coronavirus service.
People need to seek medical advice if they think they might have the virus, or have been in close contact with someone who has.