Channel 2 Action News anchor Fred Blankenship will return to the air soon after battling a breakthrough case of COVID-19.
“You may have noticed that I have been gone for a few weeks from WSB-TV and social,” Blankenship posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday, July 21. “I like long vacations but even I have my limits. The long and short of it is that COVID found my family with a bullseye. While on vacation in California members of my immediate family came down with COVID. We took all the precautions, got the vaccinations and it still happened. We quarantined, tested like crazy and hoped for the best. My family appears to be doing just fine now. Thank you for thinking of them.”
He goes on to note that, while he tested negative twice, he eventually got a positive test. And he says his symptoms were not mild.
“Over the past two weeks I have struggled to breathe. I’ve acted like the biggest baby through aches and pains,” he writes. “And, I lost my ability to taste and smell. Luckily that part is slowly starting to return. I think I smelled peanut butter today. Optimism is high!”
Despite the ordeal, Blankenship didn’t need hospitalization. “My doctor told me the fact that I got the vaccination and stayed in relatively good shape kept me out of the hospital,” he writes. “It’s been a big reminder that health is the true wealth. I want us all to be healthy my friends.
WSB says that Blankenship, who joined the station in 2007, is feeling much better now and will return to the air on Monday on Channel 2 Action News This Morning.
Before his COVID reveal on Facebook Wednesday afternoon, he had gone 19 days without any posts, an unusually long time for him. Each morning, he posts upbeat videos to his fans, often with old school beats behind him. His Facebook page has 152,000 followers. He did not post the COVID note on his Instagram page (43,000 followers) or Twitter page (12,900 followers).
