The View was thrust into chaos Friday morning after panelist Sunny Hostin and frequent guest co-host Ana Navarro were asked to leave the set while live on air.
Hostin, 52, and Navarro, 49, both tested positive for COVID-19 and were informed of their results while preparing to bring Vice President Kamala Harris on stage for an interview.
In a clip from the shocking moment, an offscreen producer asks the two TV personalities to “step off for a second.”
As they leave, fellow co-host Joy Behar says, “Ana and Sunny have to leave, and we’ll tell you why in a couple of minutes.”
“So shall I introduce the Vice President?” Behar then asks the producer, who initially replies “Yes,” before switching his answer to “No.”
Watch the clip below:
BREAKING: Sunny and Ana have been asked to leave the ABC studio because they tested positive for COVID.#TheView pic.twitter.com/DMIYrjHjid
— The Chat (@LiveOnTheChat) September 24, 2021
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The View Sunny Hostin (left), Ana Navarro
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“Since this is going to be a major news story any minute now, what happened is that Sunny and Ana both apparently tested positive for COVID,” Behar later told viewers. “No matter how hard we try, these things happen. They probably had a breakthrough case and they’ll be okay, I’m sure, because they’re both vaccinated.”
Amid the chaos, Behar, 78, and her other remaining co-host Sara Haines, 44, began taking questions from the audience, before a masked producer appeared on camera to give an update. (Whoopi Goldberg was out Friday due to sciatica, nerve pain from an injury or irritation to the sciatic nerve.)
“Everything is being done to be as safe as humanly possible,” the producer said. “So what we’re going to try and do now is an interview with the vice president remotely.”
When Harris, 56, finally appeared on air to do her virtual interview from a location within the studio, she began by addressing Hostin and Navarro’s test results.
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The View
RELATED: The View’s Joy Behar Says They Did ‘Everything We Could’ to Protect Kamala Harris After Co-Hosts Test Positive for COVID
“Sunny and Ana are strong women and I know they’re fine, but it really also does speak to the fact that they’re vaccinated and vaccines really make all the difference because otherwise we would be concerned about hospitalization and worse,” Harris said.
© The View
Sunny Hostin (left), Ana Navarro
Breakthrough cases — COVID-19 infections that occur in people who have been fully vaccinated against the virus — are rare, but possible and expected, as the vaccines are not 100 percent effective in preventing infections. Still, vaccinated people who test positive will likely be asymptomatic or experience a far milder illness than if they were not vaccinated. The majority of deaths from COVID-19 — around 98 to 99 percent — are in unvaccinated people.
