The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Kristen Bell hosts Nick pandemic special for kids, families
Kristen Bell is hosting a Nickelodeon special with a “kid’s-eye view” of the coronavirus pandemic to address youngsters’ concerns and help families weather the crisis, the channel said Friday.
Bell and her guests practiced social distancing, using video to connect for the hourlong program airing 7 p.m. EDT Monday. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s surgeon general, and Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, former U.S. surgeon general, offer advice on how to be healthy, while kids and parents around the country share how they’re coping with disruption.
“With families everywhere focused on staying healthy and essentially every kid out of school, we immediately understood this is the time to act quickly and be there for the audience in a way that can hopefully help them better cope with what’s going on,” said Brian Robbins, ViacomCBS’ head of kids and family content.
The special, also showing on TeenNick and Nicktoons, is part of the #KidsTogether initiative that launched this month and enlists familiar Nick faces to help people stay healthy and active. SpongeBob SquarePants, for instance, demonstrates effective hand-washing and social distancing in videos shown on Nickelodeon’s cable and digital platforms. public service announcements to warn about COVID-19.
Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet and Jennifer Ehle have teamed up with scientists from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health to offer four individual homemade videos with advice and a message of unity.
“Wash your hands like your life depends on it,” Winslet says in her PSA. “Because right now, in particular, it just might.”
Ehle stresses that the coronavirus is novel, meaning no one is immune. “Every single one of us, regardless of age or ethnicity, is at risk of getting it,” she says.
“Contagion,” directed by Steven Soderbergh, explores a scenario in which a lethal and fast-moving influenza is spreading around the world.
Damon in his video notes that it is “creeping it’s way up the charts on iTunes, for obvious reasons.”
Damon, who in the film played a character who was immune to the hypothetical virus, also stresses listening to experts and staying 6 feet apart.
Fishburne appeals to helping medical staff on the front line. “If we can slow this thing down, it will give our doctors and our nurses in our hospitals a fighting chance to help us all get through this thing together,” he says.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.