Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson to contribute blood for COVID-19 vaccine

"We will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the Hank-ccine"

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson will be donating their blood to help develop a vaccine for coronavirus.

The couple contracted COVID-19 last month while on set for Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Elvis Presley in Australia. They have since made a full recovery in their home in Los Angeles.

Hanks spoke on the NPR podcast Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! about their upcoming participation. “We just found out that we do carry the antibodies,” he began.

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“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.”

Hanks and Wilson have been publicly updating fans on their health since the initial diagnosis, detailing the symptoms and stages of the illness.

“Rita went through a tougher time than I did,” Hanks had previously told The National Defense Radio Show. “She had a much higher fever and she had some other symptoms. She lost her sense of taste and smell. She got absolutely no joy from food for a better part of three weeks.

“She was so nauseous, she had to crawl on the floor from the bed to the facilities. It lasted a while.”

Tom Hanks also spoke about the experience of trying to stay active in isolation, explaining the actor tried to maintain exercise in his lockdown routine but was “wiped out after 12 minutes.”

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The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has caused a number of film and TV projects to be delayed or suspended to limit the spread of the virus. Here’s the full list of affected titles.

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