Piers Morgan coronavirus fears: GMB host is forced off the ITV morning show

Piers Morgan will be taking some time off Good Morning Britain while he awaits the results of a coronavirus test.

The presenter, 55, started feeling unwell over the weekend and will stay off the programme ‘out of an abundance of caution’.

He had been going into the London studio every morning and doing his own make-up to abide by social distancing rules.

Mr Morgan tweeted on Sunday night: ‘UPDATE: On medical advice, and out of an abundance of caution for a mild symptom that arose in past 48hrs, I’ve had a test for COVID-19 and so won’t be working on @GMB until I get the result back, which should be tomorrow.’ 

The GMB host has been one of the strongest voices holding the government to account throughout the crisis.

Since the country was put in lockdown on March 23, he has become the interviewer ministers fear most due to his ruthless scrutinising of the facts.

He has spoken truth to power at every turn, including fiercely questioning decisions made by both the UK and US governments.

In an article for MailOnline on Thursday, the columnist branded Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s first press briefing back after beating Covid ‘complete and utter bullsh*t’.

He said Mr Johnson’s speech had made US President Donald Trump seem credible and that his Brexit strategy cannot be used to beat the virus.

Mr Morgan wrote: ‘When Boris fans, the vast majority of them with union jack flags and Brexit slogans in their profiles, scream abuse at me all day long on Twitter for challenging their hero’s coronavirus strategy, they do so because to them, any criticism of the government over this crisis is a re-run of the viciously toxic and partisan Brexit campaign.’

He added: ‘None of Boris Johnson’s political skills that won him the Referendum and December’s election are working like they did before the virus struck.’

The journalist pointed to a chart that was shown at the end of the briefing on the ‘Global Death Comparision’.

He spotted how it showed the UK was trending to be the second worst hit country in the world for Covid-19 deaths.

On Sunday the number of fatalities in Britain rose by 315 to 28,446, putting it on course to become the hardest hit in Europe.

Its toll is now 264 behind Italy – the continent’s original epicentre – which it will likely overtake tomorrow to suffer the second highest fatalities in the world after the US.

Mr Johnson was not the only world leader Mr Morgan has targeted, as it comes after he went toe-to-toe with President Trump over the US’s coronavirus strategy.

The presenter has repeatedly called out Mr Trump’s approach to the bug, which has rampaged across the US and killed more than 65,000 people.

This culminating in him telling Mr Trump to ‘shut the f**k up’ after the President said in a White House press briefing he was looking into the effect of injecting disinfectant to battle the bug. Mr Trump unfollowed the journalist on Twitter.

Care Minister Helen Whately was on the receiving end of two of the journalist’s most memorable displays within the space of a week last month.

The host grilled her after he caught her laughing during a chat about the number of people dying in care homes of Covid-19.

Mrs Whately, 43, the MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, was sent out to bat for the government amid anger over the vulnerability of care home residents and a lack of testing and PPE.

She said the Government had been working hard to tackle the crisis, but Mr Morgan insisted she answer questions about deaths in care homes, telling her he expected her to be working hard. He went on to lay into her after he caught her smirking.

She was also hammered by Mr Morgan during her second appearance on GMB as he accused her of not knowing how many health and care staff had died from the bug.