NBC News’ Asia correspondent Janis Mackey Frayer spent five weeks traveling to Wuhan, China, Japan and the U.K. covering the spread of COVID-19. She then self-quarantined inside her apartment for 14 days.
Then, after 49 days, Frayer finally reunited with her young son yesterday in Beijing, and it was quite an emotional reunion.
“In a word, it was: electric,” she told Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb this morning on Today. “To see him and to feel him. It was a long time coming and it made it that much harder to leave the house today and just to come to work.”
“He said to me: ‘You know, mommy, that was a lot of days that you were away.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ And he goes: ‘Let’s not do that again, OK?'”
Frayer reported that China still has some restrictions in place more than two months into the crisis, and that she “very much” has a stay-at-home order that she needs to abide by.
On behalf of NBC News, Guthrie went on to thank Frayer on-air for her coverage of the pandemic and the sacrifices she’s made in order to do so.
Here’s mother and son:
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. @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/UhxqYvFSl7
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisfrayer) April 1, 2020
From Canada, Frayer was previously at CTV as the network’s Asia bureau chief. She was also CTV’s Middle East bureau chief in Jerusalem, from 2003 to 2009 and South Asia bureau chief in New Delhi from 2009 to 2013.