Most of us are using social media to get through these trying times, making jokes and helping other people through periods of self-isolation. But celebrities seem to be in another world.
On 12 March Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were one of the first celebrities to announce that they had been tested positive for coronavirus. Ever since then, more and more celebrities have been announcing that they have tested positive. These include: NBA stars Rudy Gebert, Donovan Mitchell, Christian Wood and Kevin Durant; Sophie Trudeau, wife of Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, former Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko, CEO of Universal Music Lucian Grainge, actor Idris Elba and Game of Thrones star Kristofer Hivju.
Why and how are these celebrities getting tested so often when it’s so difficult for regular, everyday people to get tested at all? Money and influence are the answer, of course. If you can pay, you can get tested, and when the queues are long even for a test that’s privately arranged, a strong media profile may propel you to the front.
We all know that’s how the world works, but what’s annoying is that celebrities not only use their privileges, they also flaunt them in front of the rest of us. For example, with a video to reveal their ‘positive’ status (Idris Elba), or an Instagram timeline of symptoms (Rachel Matthews from Frozen 2).
But what’s to like about someone reporting sick? It only serves as a reminder that if we fall sick, we’ve no way of knowing what we’ve got. So here’s my advice for celebrities: stick to the day job of entertaining the rest of us; and when you’re not fit to do this work, stay hidden under the duvet like everybody else.
