Coronavirus: Matthew McConaughey Shares Uplifting Message

Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey took to social media today with a short video message urging people to come together and put aside their personal and political differences in the fight against the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. He told people that there was hope on the other side of the crisis and suggested that a common “enemy” could bring the world together in a way that it has not been in a long time. Broadcasting from an outdoor patio, he captioned the video with the encouragement that “every red light eventually turns green.” You can see the video in the tweet embedded below.

“Right now more than every before, we’re all more dependent on each other than we ever have been,” McConaughey said in part. “We have an enemy in coronavirus that is faceless, that is raceless, sexless, non-denominational and bipartisan, and it’s an enemy that we all agree we want to beat. We want to beat and we’re going to beat.”

Check it out here:

The global coronavirus pandemic is bringing out the best in some people, whether it’s Patton Oswalt performing stand-up for his neighbors or the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden broadcasting a daily webseries to teach kids about animals. Dropkick Murphys performed a free, livestreamed concert today and had periodic breaks to promote charities helping people who are struggling through the crisis.

And Supernatural actor Misha Collins, who had set up a text app to distribute behind-the-scenes looks at the show’s final season, sent a note out to fans earlier tonight, aying, “Just wanted to say I hope you’re hanging in there. It’s a stressful, crazy moment. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. We’ll get through this.”

Film and TV studios are struggling to respond to the pandemic. While productions have by and large shut down, some releases are being pushed to digital early, and it seems likely that TV ratings and home streaming numbers will spike as more Americans are quarantined at home with nowhere to go. Theaters are now closed almost completely around the country, and some studios are releasing recent (and even upcoming) movies on streaming platforms in the absence of a viable distribution model in cinemas. Meanwhile, in many states all “non-essential” businesses are closing down, and even Amazon is limiting incoming parcels to its warehouses from its third-party sellers, in light of serious shortages of necessary staples.