The contestants of the hit reality TV show have been shut off from the outside world since Feb. 10 and will be some of the last people in the world to hear of the pandemic.
Some of the last people in the world who still haven't heard of the coronavirus epidemic—a group of 14 men and women competing in the German version of reality TV show Big Brother— will have a rude awakening Tuesday.
The contestants in the 13th season of the show have been cut off from the outside world since Feb. 10, living together in close quarters in a house in Cologne in western Germany and engaging in potentially infectious behavior.
The contestants have not been informed of the COVID-19 pandemic that has shut down public life across the country. The rules of the show forbid contact with the outside world, and Sat.1, the network that carries the show, has so far neglected to tell them.
But after a social media uproar, and amid more than 7,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in the country, and 17 deaths, the channel reversed its position. On Tuesday, in a special show to air live at 7 p.m. local time, Sat.1 will inform the contestants of the epidemic. They will be given the opportunity to ask questions about the state of the nation, as well as receive video messages from their relatives.
Sat.1 initially defended its decision to keep the contestants in the dark and claimed they had taken “special hygienic measures” to protect them, though they did not explain what these measures entailed.
In an ironic twist, the German contestants are already conducting an accidental experiment in social distancing. The show has split the group into two different houses. One is a blockhouse offering only bare necessities, the other a modernist glasshouse equipped with luxury food and a potentially infectious hot tub.
Sat.1's decision to continue production on Big Brother stands in sharp contrast to television shows worldwide, which have suspended shooting as the world grapples with the coronavirus. Dozens of scripted series and reality shows have shut down as networks struggle to come to terms with the implication of the global pandemic.
There is some precedent to Big Brother breaking its media blackout. In 2001, the American edition of the show interrupted their second season to tell the final three contestants about 9/11.
The German residents aren't the only Big Brother contestants carrying out an accidental COVID-19 quarantine. Participants in Big Brother Canada, which kicked off March 4, and Big Brother Brazil, which saw residents move in together in January, have remained equally clueless about the epidemic raging outside their walls.
