On Monday, award-winning actor Tom Hanks and his actress wife Rita Wilson confirmed that they have been discharged from an Australian hospital the couple had been receiving treatment at after testing positive for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.
For the time being, Hanks and Wilson said they will remain under self-quarantine at a rented Australian home, the duo confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
Five days before their release from the hospital, Hank and Wilson alerted the public via social media about contacting the virus.
“Hello folks,” Hanks wrote in a statement. “Rita and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had cold hands, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”
“Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed,” the actor continued the post. “We Hanks will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?”
“We’ll keep the world posted and updated,” the 63-year-old concluded. “Take care of yourselves! Hanx!”
On Thursday, the Hanks again took to social media to thank everyone “Down Under” for taking “good care” of he and his wife.
“We are taking it one-day-at-a-time,” he wrote in a statement. “There are things we can all do to get through this by following the advice of experts and taking care of ourselves and each other, no?”
“Remember, despite all the current events, there is no crying in baseball,” he added, a notable line from the Hanks-starring film “A League of Their Own.”
— Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) March 13, 2020
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, Hanks is in Australia for the filming of an Elvis Presley biopic for Warner Bros.
The couple are not the only celebrities to test positive for the virus. On Monday, English actor Idris Elba took to social media to confirm he has been infected, too.
“This morning I tested positive for Covid 19,” Elba said in a Twitter video, The Daily Wire reported. “I feel ok, I have no symptoms so far but have been isolated since I found out about my possible exposure to the virus.”
“Stay home people and be pragmatic,” he urged viewers. “I will keep you updated on how I’m doing. No panic.”
“Yeah, and it sucks,” Elba later added. “Listen, I’m doing okay. Sabrina (Elba’s wife) hasn’t been tested, and she’s doing okay.”
“I didn’t have any symptoms,” the 47-year-old explained. “I got tested because I realized that I was exposed to someone who had also tested positive. I found out last Friday that they were tested positive. I quarantined myself and got a test immediately and got the results back today.”
The actor emphasized that now should be a time for “solidarity.”
“Look, we live in a divided world right now, we can feel it — it’s been bullsh**,” he said. “But now’s the time for solidarity, now’s the time to be thinking about each other.