Veteran actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus,
Deadline reported on Wednesday.
Hanks' publicist also confirmed the news to the freelance journalist Yashar Ali.
"Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia," Hanks said in a statement to Deadline. "We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too."
He added: "To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive. Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks' will be tested observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no? We'll keep the world posted and updated. Take care of yourselves!"
The World Health Organization officially classified coronavirus, which leads to a disease called COVID-19, as a pandemic on Wednesday. More than 125,000 people have been infected across the globe and there have been more than 4,500 deaths.
In the US, at least 1,209 people in 41 states and Washington, D.C., have tested positive for the virus as of Wednesday,
according to The New York Times, and at least 37 patients have died from it.
On Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump announced that the US will ban all travel from Europe, with the exception of Americans who have been appropriately screened, for thirty days beginning on Friday at midnight.
Financial markets have also plunged as the virus continues to spread and more and more countries implement restrictions on travel and day-to-day work.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by more than 1,800 points after the opening bell on Monday, and the S&P 500 tanked by seven percent, triggering a fail-safe that suspended all trading for 15 minutes.
The Dow fell another 1,465 points into a bear market on Wednesday after the WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic, marking the end of the longest bull-market expansion in history.
All three major indexes tanked roughly 5%, erasing gains made during
Tuesday's rebound. The drop ushered in another day of heightened volatility from coronavirus risks and
the escalating oil-market war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.