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George Stephanopoulos Says He’s Donating Blood Plasma After Recovering From Coronavirus

Screenshot/ABC Good Morning America

Shelby Talcott Senior White House Correspondent
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ABC’s George Stephanopoulos announced Tuesday that he signed up for a clinical trial to donate blood plasma following his recovery from coronavirus in an effort to help other patients.

Stephanopoulos announced that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus April 13, almost two weeks after his wife Ali Wentworth confirmed she had the virus. He said at the time that he was “basically asymptomatic” and “feeling great.”

“Last week I signed up for one of those clinical trials for recovered COVID[-19] patients to donate blood plasma … to see how that could help with treatment going into the future,” Stephanopoulos said. “That process began last week and I also took one of those tests that shows I developed the antibodies to fight off the virus.”

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Stephanopoulos added on “Good Morning America” Tuesday that he is “fully recovered” from the novel coronavirus. (RELATED: ‘China Was Not Truthful’: Ex-FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb Explains How Beijing Misled The World About Coronavirus)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is urging those who have recovered from the novel coronavirus to donate plasma in an effort to help others infected with it.

“Convalescent plasma is an antibody-rich product made from blood donated by people who have recovered from the disease caused by the virus,” the FDA said April 16. “Prior experience with respiratory viruses and limited data that have emerged from China suggest that convalescent plasma has the potential to lessen the severity or shorten the length of illness caused by COVID-19.”

A person must be fully recovered from the novel coronavirus for at least two weeks in order to be eligible to donate plasma, according to the FDA.