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Ana Navarro Breaks Her Silence After Testing Positive for COVID on The View : 'It Was Just Surreal'

Ana Navarro is speaking out after she and The View panelist Sunny Hostin were asked to leave the talk show set while live on air after testing positive for COVID-19.

Hostin, 52, and Navarro, 49, were informed of their results while preparing to bring Vice President Kamala Harris on stage for an interview. (A producer later told the audience the two women were tested again and were negative.)

Watching the moment back while appearing on Anderson Cooper 360, Navarro said that the ordeal felt "like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm."

"It takes so much work to do an interview like this and it's something that we were excited about," she said. "We were prepared to ask some tough questions. We were very proud to have the vice president come on The View and all of a sudden it turned into like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was just surreal."

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She added, "Now, because of COVID the table at The View is like the size of an aircraft carrier. Joy [Behar] is clear on the other side. I don't think she sees the commotion of what Sunny and I are told by the executive producer, Brian Teta, that this is happening. And of course it's a very awkward moment. It's puzzling. You've got a hundred things going through your head."

RELATED: Watch the Moment Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro Are Asked to Leave The View After Positive COVID Tests

In the clip, she said that they were told in their earpieces about the positive results and were unsure of what to do.

"We go 'What did you just say? Did I just hear you right?' And this is in the middle of live TV. And, as you know, Anderson, the show must go on."

After they left the stage, Navarro and Hostin were quarantined and kept away from Vice President Harris.

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"We had no contact with her for the entire day and so they're trying to figure out what is the safe way to conduct this interview and how do we do this?" she explained. "And I've gotta say, her team rolled with it and…she ended up doing the interview from that room via remote…while we were locked up in our dressing rooms."

Navarro explained that she is tested for COVID-19 weekly as a guest co-host on The View and that the show takes other precautions to mitigate the spread of the virus on set.

ANA NAVARRO sunny hostin the view test positive for COVID
ANA NAVARRO sunny hostin the view test positive for COVID

The View Sunny Hostin (left), Ana Navarro on Friday's show

RELATED: The View's Joy Behar Says They Did 'Everything We Could' to Protect Kamala Harris After Co-Hosts Test Positive for COVID

At this point, "all indications" are that the results from Friday morning are likely false positives, she added. They have since taken another rapid antigen test and a PCR test, which Navarro said both produced negative results for her.

Navarro added that she "can't speak for Sunny," adding that "it's up to her to talk about her test results." A rep for Hostin did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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 positive test results.

"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.

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.

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