Big Brother contestants around the world are exiting their lengthy periods of isolation on the reality TV show to find that coronavirus has changed the world while they were away.
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The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.
The UN agency advises people to:
- Frequently wash their hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or warm water and soap
- Cover their mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue when sneezing or coughing
- Avoid close contact with anyone who has a fever or cough
- Seek early medical help if they have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, and share their travel history with healthcare providers
- Advice about face masks varies. Wearing them while out and about may offer some protection against both spreading and catching the virus via coughs and sneezes, but it is not a cast-iron guarantee of protection
Many countries are now enforcing or recommending curfews or lockdowns. Check with your local authorities for up-to-date information about the situation in your area.
In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days.
If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.
The Swedish Big Brother contestant Daniel Glasman left his country’s edition of the show last week, having spent 50 days on the programme. When he entered the house, Covid-19 was still viewed by many as a Chinese issue, albeit with a worrying number of infections in Italy. Seven weeks later, he left his televised isolation to find a world transformed.
“I’m digesting the whole thing,” he said. “It’s so difficult because I would be in the middle of the process of dealing with being isolated, and I have to deal with the fact that the world has changed while I was gone. I can’t turn my back on the world for 50 days and expect the world to keep it together, apparently. I’ve had a very profound experience, but so has the world.”
The 38-year-old communications consultant and nightclub worker, said that the limited information he and his fellow contestants had led them to underestimate the gravity of the situation: “When we went in to isolation, we had no idea of the scale or spread of coronavirus and zero confirmed cases in Sweden. We were making jokes about the situation around corona but it was in good faith – imagining if it’s all turned into a zombie movie when we leave the house.”
As the severity of the pandemic increased, so press coverage of unaware contestants locked in regional variations of Big Brother increased, drawing comparisons with the Charlie Brooker series Dead Set where a zombie invasion affects everyone other than contestants on the show.
As a result, the Swedish producers decided to follow the lead of their German equivalents and provide limited information on the outbreak to participants on the programme, although Glasman said it was still a struggle to fully comprehend what was going on.
“I was in there for a total of 50 days, with very little information from the outside world. It’s very hard for me to separate different days and weeks from one another when on the inside. A few weeks ago they started briefing us … they wanted to let us know that all of our love ones and family and friends were safe. They wanted to calm us down.”
The show’s live feed was briefly cut to allow contestants to ask questions of producers about what was going on in the world outside the television studio: “There was a fact-centred discussion: a lot of restaurants are closing, we’re stopping huge gatherings of people, sports is stopped, air travel is restricted. Quite a lot of bullet points. We were probably the healthiest people on the planet at the time of being in the house.”
However, the questions were limited. “With all due respect to my fellow Big Brother participants, it’s not exactly a house full of rocket scientists.
He said the process was handled well by the production team, who warned him: “the world you are wanting to go out into is not the world it was before”.
Although Big Brother is no longer made in the UK, it continues to be popular around the world – including in many countries badly affected by coronavirus. The Canadian series ended prematurely due to the lockdown, with the prize money going to coronavirus charities.
Shocked contestants were gathered together and told the show was over and they were being sent home. “Part of this Big Brother game is being cut off from the real world, and it’s scary because you do not know what’s going on out there,” said contestant Hira Deol when told by producers what was going on.
Meanwhile the Brazilian contest continues, although some fans are running online campaigns to vote out medical workers who are on the show, in the hope they can help the fight against Covid-19.
Both the German and Swedish series of the show are still running, reflecting the relatively light-touch social distancing measures in those countries. As a result Glasman has been not been forced back into total isolation since going back to his normal life in Stockholm.
“We are all doing the social distancing thing to a common sense degree, but I have been to my favourite restaurants, I have had meals out, and I’ve had drinks with friends here and there, then staying isolated the rest of the time,” he said. “It’s either a case of us being right or the only ones being wrong.”