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'It is the worst pain': Comedian Michael Yo discusses his battle with coronavirus

The actor and comedian said he spent eight days in the intensive care unit and is "about 85 percent better."
Image: Michael Yo
Michael Yo speaks onstage during a benefit auction for Susan G. Komen Los Angeles County on June 16, 2016 in Los Angeles, Calif.Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images file

Actor and comedian Michael Yo said he is "about 85 percent better" following his battle with the coronavirus.

In a tearful Instagram video on March 30, Yo revealed that he had been diagnosed with the virus and pneumonia. He spent eight days in the intensive care unit before doctors said he was well enough to go home.

Yo appeared on "The Wendy Williams Show" on Monday to give an update on his recovery, saying he is still having some breathing issues.

"I feel good now," he said via a video interview. "I'm about 85 percent better. But at times, like right now, I still have to think to kind of catch my breath."

The actor, 45, said he started to feel sick about a week and a half after returning from a trip to New York. His symptoms began with a fever and then one day he woke up and "couldn't breathe that well," Yo told Williams.

His wife called 911 to have him taken to the hospital.

"I got there and the doctor looked at me after they took my lung X-ray and I said, 'How's it gonna be? Am I gonna be OK?' And he goes, 'Well, we'll know in two days. It's gonna go really good or really bad,'" Yo said.

The actor said while he was hospitalized he experienced headaches that "felt like a migraine, times a million" and had fever, chills and body aches. His fever climbed up to 103.5, he said.

Yo told Williams that he lost 13 pounds because he couldn't eat. "It is the worst pain," he said.

One of the hardest things to deal with while hospitalized was seeing other sick patients die alone, Yo said.

"That was the worst thing," he said, encouraging people to wear masks. "If you're walking around without a mask, you could be risking somebody's life in your family or somebody else's. And no one, no one Wendy, deserves to die alone."

Williams, who has been filming her talk show from home, got emotional and started to cry, saying the thought of someone dying alone "is unbearable."

In his March 30 video, Yo thanked everyone for their support.

"I appreciate all the love, the prayers, man. It meant a lot. While I was in the hospital getting better, I was looking at the Ring cam and I saw a bunch of friends drop out stuff at the house for my family and that meant so much," he said, wiping away tears.

As of April 14, more than 580,000 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., based on NBC News reporting.