Kate Garraway returns to work as doctors urge her to get on with life while husband recovers from Covid-19

Kate Garraway has revealed she will return to work on ITV's Good Morning Britain after doctors urged her to get on with her life as her husband continues to recover from coronavirus.

The presenter, 53, returned to the ITV studio in an emotional appearance on Wednesday morning -  100 days since Derek Draper, 52, was hospitalised with Covid-19.

He has since come out of an induced coma, but doctors "don't know how much better" Mr Draper can get and "he sort of can't wake-up", Garraway said.

Medical experts have now told her that his recovery could take years, and insisted she attempts to get her life back to normal.

Garraway told Hello magazine: "The doctors have been urging me not to put my life on pause. They've told me that I need to go back to work and create a routine in our lives again.

"The children and Derek are all I've thought about and they're the most important people in my life, but I must create structure and normality for the children, to clean the bath, put the plates in the dishwasher and tidy the house.

"I also need to get back to work so that I can provide for the children and we can do things together, to make them feel that the light hasn't gone out of their lives, that there's hope for the future.'

"But the doctors have warned that his condition could persist for years so I have to get on with life whilst we are waiting for him to get better."

Talking on Wednesday morning, she said she had been told six times that Mr Draper was not "going to make it".

The TV host told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid that "it's a very desperate situation" and that doctors are no longer keeping Mr Draper in a coma but "he sort of can't wake-up".

The presenter said it was "really emotional" to be back and "like coming out of a little bubble of sadness".

She said: "It's a strange word 'coma'. He was induced into the coma... as a way of resting the lungs...

"Of course, now they're no longer keeping him in the coma and he sort of can't wake-up...Wonderfully his eyes are opening but we have no real knowledge of what he can see and feel and hear."

Garraway said the fact Mr Draper is still alive offers "fantastic hope", adding: "The doctors keep saying it is a miracle that he's still alive."

But they also told her that "he's as sick as anyone" they have "ever seen in 35 years of medicine, never mind Covid, and some of those people that were as sick as him aren't here".

She said: "Six times they've said he's not going to make it... So he has been very, very sick. The problem is it's a new disease that nobody knows."

She added: "It's great that there are some flickers of hope. His lungs are starting to recover a little bit, his kidneys are doing better his liver is doing better but they don't know how much better it can get.

"They don't know how much better he can get and there's just nothing to compare it with."

And she said there was "no explanation" for the severity of his condition, adding: "He was a little bit overweight. I'm a little bit of a feeder" but there are "zero underlying conditions".

She and Mr Draper planned to renew their wedding vows before he became ill.

Garraway announced she would be back presenting Good Morning Britain on July 13 and said the couple's children have "effectively... lost their dad".

She said: "They haven't, he's there" but she added: "He's not a presence as he should be in their lives... we hope and believe he can come back to us."

She told the presenters she has a text from her husband on her phone after he was admitted to hospital, saying: "I'm definitely not going to die. I'm doing better. Show this picture of me to the children."

She said: "There was a feeling of obviously terror and then suddenly it escalated... and then suddenly it became everything.

"Each day it's been a new terror. Just when I thought we were moving forward, we now know it can affect your body everywhere."

She added of NHS treatment: "They've changed pathways because of Derek, which is a wonderful thing. I think he would be very pleased about that.

"Also as a wife, it's infuriating that he had to be the one that did it."

She tells her husband, on FaceTime: "We are going to go to the Maldives!" but the doctors tell her, "Maybe don't book a ticket. Positive thinking, but don't hand over the cash just yet".

Garraway added: "We'll never give up and I know the NHS will never give up."