A concern about the Wuhan virus is that some people might be left with brain damage. Given that Chris Cuomo has exhibited very peculiar behavior over the past few days, one has to wonder whether his bout with the virus left him with residual effects.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who has been at home for some time after being diagnosed with the Wuhan virus, has still been trying to do his job from home. On April 13, during his Sirius XM radio show, Cuomo went off on a rant about how the virus has caused him to reflect on life.

This reflection left him wishing that he was an anonymous nobody who could scream at jerks (rather than just screaming at the president?). Cuomo said in so many words that he finds his job at CNN pointless:

.@CNN's Chris Cuomo went on a rant today about how having the coronavirus has made him reconsider his life. He said he doesn't like what he does, that it isn't worth his time and even ranted about a "jackass, loser, fat tire biker":https://t.co/ctHzceHlO1 pic.twitter.com/btHJRu41nI

— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) April 14, 2020

“It made me think hard about who I am and how I live and what matters to me and what I value, and I haven’t come to any really hard conclusions about how change will look, but change is coming,” Cuomo said on his radio show. “Why? Because I don’t want to spend my time doing things hat I don’t think are valuable enough to me, personally.”

“Like what? Well, I don’t like what I do, professionally, I’ve decided … I don’t value indulging irrationality, hyper-partisanship, I don’t think it’s worth my time anymore.”

[snip]

The CNN host said that being able to do that “matters to me more than making millions of dollars a year.” He noted that he’s saved his money and doesn’t “need it anymore.” Cuomo said that it would be nice to be able to tell someone, “I don’t respect what you’re saying, I don’t respect your presence in my existence and you’re gonna leave or I’m gonna make you leave.”

“I value that more,” Cuomo said.

Fair enough. It’s not uncommon for people after a serious illness to reevaluate what matters in life. If Fredo is done with the angry fantasyland that is CNN and wants to retire, live on a farm, and scream imprecations at his neighbors, more power to him.

But here’s what’s weird. By April 14, Fredo . . . er, Cuomo denied that he’d ever said anything:

CNN primetime host Christopher Cuomo bizarrely denied expressing dissatisfaction with his job during a live monologue on his radio program, claiming: “I never said it.”

[snip]

“It’s not true,” Cuomo told listeners on Tuesday of his surprising remarks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I never said it. I never meant it.”

“I have never been in a better position, professionally, than I am in right now. They’ve been so good. They’ve been so supportive of me in ways I could never have imagined,” Cuomo, who is under self-quarantine after contracting the Chinese coronavirus, said of CNN. “I’ve never had a group of people professionally care about me the way they have shown. I’ll never be able to repay them, but I’ll try hard to do so. I’ve never been more grateful. I’ve never been on a better team.”

Cuomo also announced that he had signed a “long-term” contract extension before the pandemic.

“I love where I am, I love the position that I’ve been given, and I love who I’m doing it with. Those are all matters of fact for me,” he stated. “No place has ever been better to me. No place has ever given me the opportunities that Jeff Zucker has.”

Notice that Cuomo didn’t say, “I was just feeling blue and whining.” Instead, he said, “I never said it.”

There are growing signs that Wuhan virus can cause brain damage:

Through a growing number of papers, doctors around the globe are chronicling Covid-19’s lesser-known neurological manifestations including brain inflammation, hallucinations, seizures, cognitive deficits and loss of smell and taste.

[snip]

Last Friday, Chinese doctors published a study of 214 hospitalized patients in Wuhan showing that more than a third had neurologic symptoms. The most common included dizziness, headaches, impaired consciousness, skeletal-muscle injury and loss of smell and taste. (Emphasis added.)

Cuomo did say that he was having bizarre hallucinations at the peak of his illness. His brain may have been more affected that he or anyone else realized at the time. If that is indeed the problem, one can only hope that his recovery continues so that any lingering mental effects are entirely gone.