Big Brother Australia: How housemates reacted to coronavirus pandemic update

Big Brother host Sonia Kruger has revealed how the housemates reacted when they were told about the coronavirus pandemic.

Big Brother host Sonia Kruger has revealed how the housemates reacted when they were told about the coronavirus pandemic last week.

Unlike previous years, Channel 7’s version of the show will be prerecorded and is currently being filmed in a warehouse in Sydney.

“We advised the housemates last Friday,” Kruger said on Sunrise this morning. “Our executive producer went into the house and spoke to them through the diary room.”

Kruger said the housemates were “shocked, as most people would be learning the news about a worldwide pandemic”.

Sonia Kruger gave a Big Brother Australia update on Sunrise this morning.

Bizarrely, Kruger said the housemates “were really quite concerned to hear about the football codes, NRL and AFL, potentially not going ahead”.

Interestingly, the moment the housemates were told about the coronavirus outbreak was not filmed by producers.

“We felt it was probably better to do it this way,” Kruger said.

The host also revealed that Big Brother Australia has a “wellness manager” who is keeping in touch with the contestants’ family and friends and they will advise the housemates if any of their loved ones are affected.

“The last thing we want is for them to be concerned about their friends and family,” Kruger said on Sunrise.

The Big Brother set is in a warehouse at North Head. Picture: Julian Andrews/AAP

Big Brother Australia will air on Channel 7 soon and at the end of the interview Kruger teased: “It’s such a great cross-section of society in there, they’re a really interesting group – and there might even be somebody you know.”

Kruger’s update comes a day after the housemates on Big Brother Germany were told about the pandemic during a one-hour live TV special.

During the program, the show’s host and a doctor delivered the news to the stunned housemates, who were then shown a video about how the virus had spread, how Germany had closed its borders, and how restaurants and bars all over the country had closed down.

Some pictures from Big Brother Germany's live coronavirus special - a few housemates have shed tears but they're generally keeping their composure. The doctor spoke to them at length and is now taking their questions #BBDE #BigBrother pic.twitter.com/CayT9HgERj

— bbspy (@bbspy) March 17, 2020

It was also explained to them that the reason they’d stopped hearing applause during live shows was that large audiences had been banned amid the COVID-19 crisis.

After the presentation, the overwhelmed contestants asked about the death rate – which is currently around 28 in Germany – and the risk to their loved ones. By the end of the conversation, several of them were in tears.