For three nights, Rachel Maddow, a top-rated MSNBC host, had spent hours covering the protracted election, spaced apart from her fellow hosts Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace “at a physical distance that belies our emotional closeness,” as she put it during an election night broadcast. On Friday, Ms. Maddow said on Twitter that she had gone into quarantine after a “close contact” tested positive for the coronavirus.
“I’ve tested negative thus far, but will be at home quarantining ’til it’s safe for me to be back at work without putting anyone at risk,” Ms. Maddow wrote.
The decision to stay away from the anchor desk will separate her from Ms. Wallace and Ms. Reid, as well as her colleagues Brian Williams and Steve Kornacki, as they monitor the vote count in the last states that NBC News had yet to give to either President Trump or Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Ms. Maddow last appeared before the cameras on Thursday night, when she tweaked Mr. Kornacki over his fondness for khakis and reminded viewers that she and her fellow anchors were not the ones who determined when the network called election results.
The New York Times
