Recovered Ellen DeGeneres returns to studio for talk show

Daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who had announced on Dec. 10 she had contracted COVID-19, has recovered and was in the studio for her first show back.

"Obviously there are a lot of negative things going on, so instead I want to talk about something positive: my COVID test," DeGeneres, 62, joked Wednesday to the virtual audience appearing on video monitors. "I'm fine now, everything's good, I'm all clear. I want to thank everyone who reached out with kind words of support. I wish I could've hugged each and every one of you," the comedian continued, quipping, "That would've been dangerous and illegal, probably."

DeGeneres recounted how the news of the potentially fatal disease was broken to her. "I was getting ready to tape the show … and I was in hair and makeup … and then my assistant, Craig, walks in and says, 'You've tested positive for COVID.' And then everyone around me ran away," she riffed. "It's funny, people just really get scared and they ran. Some have not come back since," she joked. "So anyway, I left the studio immediately and our COVID safety team informed everyone that I had been in contact with."

The comedian joked her wife, Portia de Rossi, "made me sleep in a different room on a different bed because she wanted the race-car bed all to herself."

The first three days, DeGeneres remembered, "I slept 16 hours a day. And then, like, on the fourth day I woke up with back spasms and I thought I had pulled a muscle or slept weird because I was in a different bed. But it just persisted."

Her doctor prescribed pain medication and muscle relaxants, which "did not help. My back got worse. It felt like I cracked a rib. … They finally put me on a steroid pack, because the other stuff was not working."

DeGeneres later learned that back pain is a lesser-known symptom of COVID-19. "It's the only symptom I had. I didn't have a headache, I didn't have fever, I didn't lose my sense of taste — although I did wear Crocs with socks for a day, so you be the judge."

How she contracted the disease remains a mystery to her. "I wear a mask, I wash my hands, I only licked three or four door handles," she joked.

Toward the end of the monologue, DeGeneres acknowledged "a lot of people out there are struggling with this illness right now. My heart goes out to all of them."

Restart of season 18 production after the holiday hiatus was delayed a week from Jan. 4 to Jan. 11 because of the COVID-19 surge in Los Angeles, where the show is produced.