Actress Evangeline Lilly (“Ant-Man,” “The Hobbit”) is not letting the COVID-19 pandemic get in the way of her plans. In an Instagram post on Thursday, she openly flouted social distancing despite living with a cancer-ridden father.
“Just dropped my kids off at gymnastics camp. They all washed their hands before going in. They are playing and laughing. #businessasusual,” said Lilly, as reported by Page Six.
Needless to say, Lilly’s casual admission prompted curiosity among her fans.
“No Corona House Arrest???” asked one user.
“Not for this family,” replied Lilly.
Evangeline Lilly then described herself as “immune compromised” as she revealed herself to be living with her father, who has stage 4 leukemia.
“I am living with my father at the moment, who has stage four leukemia,” wrote Lilly. “I am also immune compromised at the moment. I have two young kids. Some people value their lives over freedom, some people value freedom over their lives. We all make our choices.”
Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Lilly dismissed it as a “respiratory flu” while warning against the government using this time to take control of people’s lives. She even went as far to imply some kind of conspiracy behind the virus.
“Where we are right now feels a lot too close to Marshall Law [sic] for my comfort already, all in the name of a respiratory flu,” she said. “It’s unnerving…Let’s be vigilant right now. And kind. Watchful and gracious — keeping a close eye on our leaders, making sure they don’t abuse this moment to steal away more freedoms and grab more power.”
“There’s ‘something’ every election year,” she later added.
While celebrities certainly have stepped up to educate the public about social distancing during the pandemic, the actress is far from the only one going about business as usual. In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis closed the beaches in response to spring breakers largely ignoring CDC guidelines.
“The message I think for spring breakers is that the party’s over in Florida, you’re not going to be able to congregate on any beach in the state,” DeSantis told Fox News. “Many of the hot spots that people like to go to, whether it’s Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Clearwater Beach, are closed entirely for the time being.”
“The bars are closed so you’re not going to have a place to congregate there, so we would just tell those folks maybe come back next year when things are better, but that is not what we’re looking for here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis added. “Every single beach will have to abide by the CDC guidelines, no more than 10 people, you have to be socially distant, not every beach is going to remain open, but some will.”
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has called upon celebrities and social media influencers to instruct their followers to take the virus seriously.
“What I really think we need to do … [is] get our influencers — [NBA players] Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, we need to get Kylie Jenner, we need to get our social media influencers out there and helping folks understand that look, this is serious,” Adams said on “Good Morning America.”
In one terrifying video that went viral on Thursday, spring breakers openly expressed flippancy in regard to the situation while being interviewed on camera.
“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let it stop me from partying,” one spring breaker infamously said. “You know, we’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting, for Miami spring break for a while, about two months we’ve had this trip planned. And we’re just out here having a good time. Whatever happens, happens.”
Regarding COVID-19’s effect on young people, recent data shows it may not be as innocuous as once believed.
According to The New York Times, nearly 40% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were between the ages of 20 to 54:
American adults of all ages — not just those in their 70s, 80s and 90s — are being seriously sickened by the coronavirus, according to a report on nearly 2,500 of the first recorded cases in the United States.
The report, issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that — as in other countries — the oldest patients had the greatest likelihood of dying and of being hospitalized. But of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 38 percent were notably younger — between 20 and 54. And nearly half of the 121 patients who were admitted to intensive care units were adults under 65, the C.D.C. reported.
“I think everyone should be paying attention to this,” said Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “It’s not just going to be the elderly. There will be people age 20 and up. They do have to be careful, even if they think that they’re young and healthy.”
Follow the federal guidelines on social distancing rigorously, or just take the president’s word for it:
The @WhiteHouse IG account really put this up 😂 pic.twitter.com/7PmJBJ0S2l
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) March 19, 2020