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Coronavirus has been spreading across the globe, with over 70,000 confirmed cases and nearly 6,000 deaths. Several countries have been putting the communities under quarantine and lockdown in a bid to stop the virus from further spreading. How does coronavirus affect our favorite soaps?
Coronation Street and Emmerdale Set Tours Cancelled
ITV on Friday announced that it will suspend set tours for its top soap operas, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. The move is in line with the ongoing cancellations and suspensions of events and other social gatherings in the UK amid the coronavirus fears.
In a statement published on the network’s website, ITV said, “As a precautionary measure, and in line with our established contingency plans across the business, we will temporarily be pausing operation of our set tours.”
The network said that this will help them “manage the footfall in these areas, helping us to ensure we continue to produce these key ITV shows and [ensure] the safety and welfare of all our staff, production teams and guests.”
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Fans who have already booked their tickets to the Corrie and Emmerdale set tours will be able to reschedule their trips when things have gone back to normal. On the one hand, those who do not want or could not reschedule can opt for a refund.
Corrie and Emmerdale Could Go Down to Two Episodes per Week
As of now, ITV has not announced any cancellations of the filming of the two soaps. Coronation Street and Emmerdale produce new episodes six times a week and are eight weeks ahead of their airing date.
When the bosses have held discussion as to how to handle the crisis, one option they see is to drop the number of episodes they air per week to ration the currently available episodes.
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Admittedly, however, the bosses fear that should Covid-19 hit the soaps hard, they would run out of episodes to air and Corrie and Emmerdale would have to go off the air.
A TV source told Mirror that the problem would come when they can’t bring people to go behind and in front of the camera to do new episodes. As of now, one Corrie actor is in self-isolation as advised by health professionals.
Meanwhile, ITV spokesperson said that the network is confident that they can continue filming fresh episodes for the two soap operas.