Tom Hanks Felt Like Canary In The Coal Mine After High-Profile Covid-19 Diagnosis

Tom Hanks has said he felt like a “canary in the coalmine” after he became one of the first famous people to test positive for coronavirus .

The Hollywood actor and his wife Rita Wilson spent three days in an Australian hospital after being diagnosed with the virus in March.

Speaking to the Australian publication Stellar , Tom said that “no-one is safe” from the illness.

When asked about being one of the early celebrities to test positive for the virus, he said: “I was the canary in the coalmine for some of this, for sure.

“But now we are once again at the place where there is no guarantee of immunity, from the information I’ve read.

“We are not done with this. In fact we are right smack-dab in the middle.”

He continued: “When we were told we were found positive, we thought, ‘What? What did we win?’ Then you’re given the facts.”

Tom and Rita contracted Covid-19 while in Australia as Tom was working on an Elvis Presley biopic. 

The pair subsequently recovered and were able to return to the US. 

Tom added that “we’re all in this together”.

“Everybody is suffering to a much greater extent than I am. The reality is this is a great equaliser. No-one is safe,” he warned. 

“I wake up every day and consider myself extremely blessed I have a level of security and safety that not a lot of people can count on.”

Tom recently spoke of how he and Rita had “very different reactions” after falling ill. 

“My wife lost her sense of taste and smell, she had severe nausea, she had a much higher fever than I did,” he told the Guardian . 

“I just had crippling body aches, I was very fatigued all the time and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than about 12 minutes. That last bit is kinda like my natural state anyway.”