After spending five weeks traveling to Wuhan, China, Japan and the U.K. covering the coronavirus crisis followed by a self-quarantine inside her apartment for 14 days, NBC News correspondent Janis Mackey Frayer was reunited with her husband and young son this week for the first time in nearly 50 days.
In a moving video posted to her Twitter account, Frayer shares the moment when she was finally able to hug her son, saying, "With work travel, restrictions and quarantine in China, our family was apart for 49 days. And yes, every one of them was hard — the worry, the decisions, the failed plans, isolation. Our little guy has been brave and resilient... and this was easily the best. hug. ever."
On Instagram last week, Frayer shared a stark image of the realities of quarantine: Her apartment door decorated with a drawing from her son that awaited her when she returned home to start her isolation period and a letter from Chinese quarantine authorities saying she could not "set foot outside of the apartment for 14 days."
In the post, Frayer explained that her husband and son stayed in temporary housing until her quarantine was over.
The journalist also shared a video on Twitter earlier in March showing her husband and son waving at her from the street as she talked on the phone with them from her apartment window.
"It's not easy being apart then isolated from family, so what a lift to get a phone call to go to the window," she wrote.
Throughout Frayer's attempts to document the quarantine experience, commenters praised her for doing her due diligence to stop the spread of coronavirus, no matter how hard it was to be separated from her family.
"A responsible thing done by a responsible person," wrote one Twitter user.
"Thank you for your sacrifice," wrote another. "I know those 49 days felt like an eternity."
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
