'SNL' goes without an audience due to Covid

New York (CNN Business)Another NBC late night show has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Seth Meyers — the host of the network’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” — said on Tuesday that he has tested positive for Covid.
“The bad news is, I tested positive for COVID (thanks, 2022!)” Meyers tweeted. “The good news is, I feel fine (thanks vaccines and booster!)”

Meyers added that “Late Night” is “canceling the rest of the shows this week.”

“So tune in next Monday to see what cool location we will try and pass off as a studio!!!”

The bad news is, I tested positive for COVID (thanks, 2022!) the good news is, I feel fine (thanks vaccines and booster!) We are canceling the rest of the shows this week, so tune in next Monday to see what cool location we will try and pass off as a studio!!!

— Seth Meyers (@sethmeyers) January 4, 2022

The news that Meyers tested positive comes a day after the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon, said on Instagram that he, too, had tested positive for the virus.
“Thank you to the doctors and nurses who work so hard around the clock to get everyone vaxxed,” Fallon wrote. “Thank you to NBC for taking the testing protocols so seriously and doing a great job – and also thanks for putting me in the “What ‘chu talkin’ about Willis?” isolation room when they told me the news.”
Fallon also said that he was vaccinated and boosted, which “made me lucky enough to only have mild symptoms.”
The news that Fallon and Meyers both have Covid comes just a few weeks after “Saturday Night Live” had to go on without an audience because of the pandemic. The NBC variety show opened its December 18 episode with Tom Hanks greeting a nearly empty studio.

“Tonight everyone at ‘Saturday Night Live’ planned to do our big Christmas show… but Covid came early this year,” Hanks said, adding that “in the interest of safety, we do not have an audience.”

Like almost everyone with a late night show, Meyers has had a roller coaster experience with the pandemic. In its early days, he did shows from from his attic with guests on video. More recently, the show returned to its studio.
“When you’re a talk show host, and not just me but my colleagues as well, people really feel like they know you. And through this year they felt like they knew us even more than before, because they were seeing us in our homes, they were seeing our children, they were seeing our spouses,” Meyers told CNN Business in April of 2021. “And so if there is such a thing as a connection with a TV show, I think that probably got strengthened this year.”
Source: Read Full Article