It’s been a big 24 hours in coronavirus news. Here’s what you need to know.
Does Donald Trump have coronavirus?
New White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has had an auspicious start to his new job, admitting himself to self quarantine after meeting someone with the virus.
Meadows, along with two congressmen who have are also now self quarantined, have all spent time with President Donald Trump in recent days, but the White House has said the president would not be tested “because he has neither had prolonged close contact” with confirmed patients “nor does he have any symptoms”.
Plus, as Trump and his allies keep saying, it’s all a hoax.
Entertainment in Jeopardy
Elsewhere, the virus and attendant coverage and fear continue to spread into most areas of life, both profound and mundane.
Entertainment is being hit hard. Following the delay of the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die and the cancellation of various festivals such as South By South West and Hobart’s Dark Mofo, plus the postponement of Coachella, now US TV game show favourites Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune will begin recording episodes without studio audiences “indefinitely”.
Meanwhile, closer to home, singer Miley Cyrus has announced that “due to the recommendations of local, state, federal and international government authorities, including the Center for Disease Control … we are no longer travelling to Aus for the show”.
Prince Harry is ‘Walking Away’ from improper virus protocol
Sometimes (and with increasing regularity since 2016) the world throws up a situation that sounds like the product of audience suggestions at a community improv comedy night — a situation that can only be explained by a sentence that would be, in any sane world, utter gibberish.
Here is one such sentence: at a Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey, Prince Harry and early-2000s heartthrob Craig David shared a surprisingly graceful and unselfconscious “elbow bump” greeting.
Presumably it was proper virus protocol but it looked so practised that maybe it’s just, like, their thing?
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