‘It’s as easy as taking a nap’: Tom Hanks donates blood plasma for coronavirus vaccine research

Tom Hanks has made good on his promise to donate blood plasma to help find a coronavirus vaccine, marking the occasion with a bizarre photo.

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Tom Hanks had made good on his promise to donate blood plasma to help find a vaccine for COVID-19.

The Oscar winner took to social media where he shared a picture of the yellow bag of liquid and said the donation process was simple.

“Here’s last week’s bag of plasma. Such a bag!” he wrote on Instagram.

“After the paperwork, it’s as easy as taking a nap. Thanks @arimoin and UCLA. Hanx.”

Tom Hanks' has made good on his promise to donate blood plasma. Picture: Instagram/@tomhanks

After being one of the first celebrities to be diagnosed with coronavirus, Tom Hanks last week announced that his blood would be used to help find a vaccine.

Hanks, 63, and his wife Rita Wilson were two of the first celebrities struck down with the virus, and they were also the first to come out about their diagnosis and to recover.

The pair revealed they had volunteered to give their blood and plasma to COVID-19 research, according to the New York Post’s Page Six.

“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 said on NPR’s podcast “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”

Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson fully recovered from COVID-19 but have now joined the search for a vaccine. Picture: AFP

The decision was made after Hanks and Wilson learned they had antibodies from their battle with the potentially deadly virus which has killed more than 200,000 people worldwide, and which they contacted in Australia last month.

“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.

The actor said that the couple were mystified as to how they contracted coronavirus while in Queensland where Hanks was filming Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming Elvis Presley biopic.

Actors Tom Hanks (L) and his wife actress/singer Rita Wilson became the poster-couple of celebrity self-quarantining against coronavirus. Picture: AFP

Hanks and Wilson weren't the only people to be shocked and surprised.

Australia’s Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann, who was directing the latest Elvis biopic was rocked by the diagnosis.

BAZ LURHMANN OPENS UP ABOUT DEADLY BUG

Baz Luhrmann vividly recalled the moment he learned Hanks had contracted the virus and how the film crew reacted to the discovery, according to CinemaBlend.

“So I’m getting ready to begin shooting on a Monday, and I’m rehearsing the scene where we’ve built the Vegas showroom, and Tom guides in Austin [Butler] as Elvis, and it’s a scene where basically hundreds of girls are kissing Elvis, in a ’70s show.

“Tom guides him through the crowd. All of a sudden I see my producer, Patrick McCormick on the set, and he had the same look in his eyes like he had a week earlier. And I thought, well this can’t be good. You and the world knows what happened next.

Baz Luhrmann says he was shocked by the diagnosis of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, but that all parties, including Australia, swung into action against the disease. Picture: Christian Gilles

“Tom and Rita handled it all so well, and we were so fortunate we had this direct connection with the head of infectious diseases, because it was an immediate shutdown. Without getting into the Australia-U. S. comparison, when it comes to the health system, they are so robust here. They were right on it.”

Lurhmann went on to tell Deadline that as shocking as the situation was, Hanks’ and Wilson’s cases helped draw global attention to the seriousness of the pandemic: “(S) uddenly everyone went, this is real. He became an advertisement for it.”

Hanks and Wilson became the role models for early self-quarantining.

So far, no other positive cases came from anyone in Lurhmann’s cast or crew.

While production has been indefinitely suspended, the director is working closely with Australian officials to decide if and when it’s safe to resume.

Baz Luhrmann, Olivia DeJonge and Austin Butler in Sydney before their Elvis bipoic was shut down by coronavirus. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

It comes as the world races to develop a vaccine and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that his state, which has become the epicentre for the disease in the United States, began conducting antibody tests of nurses, doctors, police officers, grocery clerks and other essential workers while also allowing local pharmacies to collect samples for diagnostic tests.

The top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci agreed that testing was key to getting back to normal by identifying carriers, isolating them and tracing their contacts with others.

“Right now we’re doing 1.5 million to 2 million (tests) per week. We probably should get up to twice that as we get into the next several weeks, and I think we will.”

An available vaccine that works may be elusive for some time despite US President Donald Trump’s assurances that it will be available “relatively soon.”

US President Donald Trump watches as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Picture: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

White House spokesman Judd Deere said “any suggestion that the president does not value scientific data or the important work of scientists throughout his time in office is patently false.”

Mr Deere pointed to “data-driven” decisions on the virus, such as limiting travel from highly infected areas, expediting vaccine development and issuing social distancing guidance to slow the spread of the virus.

Originally published as ‘It’s as easy as taking a nap’: Tom Hanks donates blood plasma for coronavirus vaccine research