Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson to donate blood, plasma for coronavirus vaccine
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Image: Anthony HARVEY / AFP
After their bout with COVID-19, Hollywood couple Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson want to help in the development of a coronavirus vaccine with their own blood and plasma.
“A lot of the questions [are] what do we do now? Is there something we can do? And, in fact, we just found out that we do carry the antibodies,” Hanks said on radio show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” last April 18.
“We have not only been approached; we have said, do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?”
“And, in fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the Hank-ccine,” he quipped.
Hanks and Wilson have been a part of a study where they donated blood after both recovered from the infectious disease, the actress said on “CBS This Morning” on April 14. At that time, they “were waiting to hear back to see if our antibodies will be helpful in [the] creation of [a] vaccine.”
Wilson recalled on the morning show that she experienced COVID-19 worse than her husband. She had a fever, lost her sense of taste and smell and was “very tired, extremely achy, uncomfortable, didn’t want to be touched.” Meanwhile, Hanks had a fever, but at a lower temperature than hers.
Last March, they were one of the first Hollywood celebrities to announce that they were positive for the coronavirus while Hanks was working on a film in Australia. They returned to the United States before the end of the same month. Niña V. Guno/JB
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