FRIDAY UPDATE: Production has restarted
Original article
It’s a new year, but it still feels like 2021, with the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, and it is again impacting the production of new Star Trek.
Picard paused
After the pandemic delayed the start of production for many months, filming for the second season of Star Trek: Picard wrapped up in early September 2021. In order to make up for the time lost they just kept going, moving straight into season three the next day. Production returned this week after the traditional holiday hiatus, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, they had to shut down on Monday due to over 50 members of the production testing positive, which is just over 10% of the show’s large 450 person crew. TrekMovie has also independently confirmed the production pause.
Art director tweeting from the set about returning to work early Monday morning
COVID protocols have film productions split into zones, but according to the report the infections spread across multiple zones, including cast in Zone A, although which members of the cast were not indicated. According to Deadline, Patrick Stewart has not tested positive.
The Omicron Variant has seen a major increase in infections, which has prompted some productions to delay restarting after the holiday break. The Picard production remains shut down currently but according to reports also confirmed by TrekMovie, filming is expected to resume next week, if not sooner.
Patrick Stewart getting vaccinated ahead of Picard production start in early 2021
Strange New Worlds season 2?
Industry reports indicate that Paramount+ is readying to go back into production for the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in Toronto, Canada. The latest info sets a start date in less than four weeks. Just yesterday Ontario enacted a new lockdown order for many businesses, for now film production is still being allowed. In 2021 both Discovery and Strange New Worlds had positive COVID cases during production, and Discovery also had to temporarily pause filming.
Goldberg tests positive
Whoopi Goldberg, who reprises her TNG role as Guinan for the second season of Picard, revealed earlier this week that she too had tested positive for COVID. She has not yet returned to the set of her daily talk show The View, but yesterday she did appear remotely from her home to talk about her diagnosis.
TrekMovie will continue to monitor this story and provide updates when available.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.
FIFTY?!?!?
Tom Cruise would be sh*tting kittens….
Kittens…. LOL. I read about how angry Cruise got about all that on one of his shoots; wasn’t that from one of the Mission Impossible films? It’s a good thing that the survival rate (to quote CDC’s initial reports, and many others since then) for all variants of covid is over 99%. Let’s hope and pray EVERYONE recovers, since it’s likely that once one gets it and has “had” it, natural immunity kicks in and it shouldn’t happen again. Here’s hoping for EVERYONE on all the shows to have a terrific, wonderful, healthy and FULL 2022. Live Long And Prosper, to all who are creating the many shows.
Omicron spreads far and wide. My partner is a healthcare provider and it swept through her department in the hospital so fast, and that is with PPE. Take care and stay safe, everyone.
This sucks. I hope everyone is okay.
Same Safety comes first.
Exactly! Some “Facebook Medical Experts” here with their wise-ass remarks fail to realize that an 81 year old is in real danger of dying if they get COVID. Shatner, at 90 too.
I don’t want to judge but…”50 members of the production testing positive” SERIOUSLY?
Omicron is not easy to evade. Way more contagious than all the other variants. Luckily it’s milder.
50 cases across all zones is a breakdown in protocols – no other show shot in California has reported anything close to this – yes NCIS has reported An Unnamed Cast member (Zone A) caught it. It could only be one of 7 cast members, unless they are counting the regular background extras in the NCIS Washington HQ scenes as “Cast”.
I got Covid from the holiday break. This new strain is no joke, I’m vaxxed and boosted and have mild symptoms, but I still got it. Be careful out there, people!
The only common link anyone on the show would have in all zones is food services – and those are being handled VERY carefully.
These people caught it during the holiday break. This is why I don’t go out anymore.
Hopefully everyone is under 60 that it’s a sore throat and a cough.
I would also recommend taking Pfizer Ritonavir Paxlovid, the three trials were very successful at ensuring no severe outcomes that it reduces COVID to flu status.
Not sure why the neither of our governments pre-ordered Ritonavir Paxlovid despite a whole year of knowing it was coming as they did with the vaccines despite them being way more experimental at the time. But at least they gave it emergency approval in the US, appearently in Canada we can only give emergency compassionate approval if it is ultra experimental never before used RNA vaccines (?!?) because I guess we don’t like to treat people??
Omicron… I always have to think of Omicron Theta, Data’s birth planet, recently. And that this variant may have been created artificially by a present-day member of the Soong family to counter the natural variants by mass “vaccination” to end the pandemic…
This post holiday surge isn’t surprising. Strict protocols are in place but they have no control over the actions of cast and crew when they’re not on set. There’s a good chance the number of cases is likely to rise in the coming days ad that we may start seeing similar numbers from other shows that went back into production after the holidays.
Well, the good news is that based on what we’ve learned about it in the last couple of months omicron seems to be little worse than a cold and thus far (last I heard) no one has died from it. Also, most people who have gotten it are asymptomatic and there is the added bonus of potentially forming a natural immunity for those who get it. If the data is followed this break really shouldn’t be all that long.
Local teen infected with Omicron just passed away tonight. He wasn’t vaccinated but his death still took the community by surprise.
A co-worker, a friends son and three of my neighbors (all fully vaccinated) reported mild to severe cold-like symptoms but felt OK within a few days. Two of the neighbors had the Delta variant in 2020, were vaccinated early in 2021, were infected with omicron just before Christmas. There’s a reduced risk of reinfection if you’re vaccinated but you can still get reinfected.
Best guess is that they’ll shut down production for at least 14 days to allow enough time for those who were infected to fully recover and to put enough time between the diagnosis for the infected and resumption of production.
This probably won’t be the last show to announce numbers like these.
That appeared to be true early on (though it’s almost certain not every case and by extension death was identified) but now thousands have died from it. A smaller proportion than Delta, but not a small number :(.
The deaths reported were “omicron related”. So it’s fair to take such numbers with huge grains of salt. For example, the first omicron related death reported was a gentleman who was not vaccinated but died WITH omicron. Not FROM omicron.
And one must also remember that according to the CDC the 2018-2019 flu season claimed over 28,000 US deaths. Omicron “related” deaths are still well below that. Could that change? Sure. But no reason to implement stringent requirements at this stage.
Further, in my county (nearly 2 million) the number of cases has surged but the death rate has remained the same or fallen. Currently the 7 day rolling average death rate here is 1.1. Yet the governments are running around with their heads cut off thinking that cases are more important than deaths. That’s just nuts.
The dumbest statistic is the positivity number. If it’s 30% it means 70% of tests were wasted? 70% of people who think they have COVID were wrong (how dangerous is COVID if no one can even tell if they have it?!?!)? If only one person goes to get tested and they have COVID that you get a 100% positivity rate what does that really tell you? And if one person goes to get tested and doesn’t have COVID and you have a 0% positive rate??
I suppose it helps distract from the almost as useless general case count, in most cases asymptomatic to rough flu, instead of serious outcomes in not-so-hard-to-identify populations (elderly and those with co-conditions).
My county publishes a new case count every day. Which is worthless. The only data that really matters is deaths and to a lesser extent, hospitalizations. Pretty sure there is an obvious reason for the powers that be only report the cases and completely ignore the death rates when they are absurdly low.
Me and my girlfriend are going to Walt Disney world this week in Florida where cases are now up 2000% (Florida man).
We booked it months ago thinking the worst had left. Can’t cancel now. We both had double shots and boosted but still a bit concerned.
Not worried about getting majorly sick but we both get tested a lot at our jobs and anyone tested positive we have to be quarantined two weeks before returning to work. No exceptions.
That’s a tough one Tiger2. Too bad the timing is so bad. Try to eat outdoors as much as possible and wash and use sanitizer as much as you can. I have family members who went to Cancun early last month and they had no issues, but were really careful. Try to enjoy and stay safe Tiger2!
Thanks DeanH! Really appreciate it.
Yeah we will carry sanitizers we will be using everywhere. Weather looks nice for this time of year so we will probably be eating outside a lot as well.
Please be careful Tiger2. We always carry alcohol wipes and spray, now using NIOSH approved face masks at all times. Enjoy. Stay safe and healthy.
Yeah forgot to say what Jay did. You probably have sourced out what you need, but if not go get some good quality N-95, KN-95 or similar masks. Especially for the flight which will last several hours. Personal politics aside, one of the biggest reasons why some resist wearing masks is because some are really not very comfortable and they hurt your face. There are many high quality and comfortable respirators out there, so before traveling try a few and see which ones fit the best. Safe travels.
Can’t wait for this to be over. Until then, we just need to be careful. :P
Thanks Jay! Yes will be carrying sanitizers for sure and have N95 masks!
I hear ya’. Get some Niosh approved N95 masks, keep as much distance as possible from others, wash your hands frequently. Disney seems to be doing the bare minimum as of late so it’s all on the guests to ensure their own safety.
We already have them! We will be carrying hand sanitizers too (which my girlfriend always carries anyway). We went to Disneyland last summer since we’re locals to that park (but we’re huge Disney nuts, been to every park worldwide) and they were pretty strict. But this was when everything was reopening and everyone was putting their best foot forward. We’ll see about WDW!
The wife and I haven’t flown anywhere for three years now. We’ve traveled some but drove. Just don’t want to deal with the restrictions. No fun. So not going to waste the money. unless there is something compelling us to go. For example, this spring I will need to head out east to my best friend’s memorial service. Driving.
We been going stir crazy lol. We want to get out of L.A. at least for a little while. We originally planned to go abroad but that is still a huge hassle in most places. We were trying to go back to Hong Kong and visit Hong Kong Disneyland but they still have a 3 week quarantine rule, vaccinated or not (and they just announced shutting HKDL down again). America has one of the most lax rules, at least compared to a lot of places in Asia and Europe. So gave up on that and decided on WDW last year.
Wife and I just flew back from Vegas for New Year’s, we’re fine. Vaxxed and boosted and masked where necessary. Spoke to a good friend who’s an ER nurse last night, she said hands down, 99% of people in hospitals and dying are not vaccinated. Be well, Trek Friends.
Good to hear Danpaine! Yeah as bad as everything still is, it’s the mostly unvaccinated with the major issues. One of my cousins got it last week, but because she was vaccinated, she only had mild symptoms but had to quarantine at home. So far the ONLY person I know personally who got it at all.
Traveling for us was not that bad over the holidays, took wife and kids to Scottsdale. Ironically coming into the US was easier than returning to Canada given CDC accepts rapid testing than coming back into Canada which required a PCR.
I don’t know how fun DisneyWorld would be with masks, but Florida seems like one of the sane jurisdictions to escape too (hats off to Arizona, was so awesome being in a place where people aren’t wearing fabric on their face outside for no reason). Also crazy awesome how you weren’t having to show a QR code everywhere in the US.
Hardest part was airline cancellations, seems all the other flights but ours was moved due to staff limitations. At the gate we got held up at YYC for an hour (again no staff).
Ironically none of us got COVID, now I am back in Canada and I very eerily have a whole floor to myself as everyone else here had/has COVID!
For anyone in Arizona testing I recommend making an appointment with Embry women’s health, school parking lot, take swabs, give them to attendant. 24-48 hours, boom, text with a link to your report. Can’t recommend them enough, was such great service.
There is no way in hell I am voluntarily wearing a mask. Wondering why there aren’t more studies on the effectiveness of the cloth masks. The only one that was done with a non medical population showed cloth masks to be statistically ineffective. No one wears them right. Many don’t follow the handling rules. Most have used the same mask all summer. Only the N-95’s and KN-95’s are effective. Therefore, mask mandates don’t work. I always walk into stores with no mask on. I keep one in my pocket and if a store employee asks me to mask I do so. But I have found that only the larger “big box” stores are enforcing it. Makes me want to never step foot in those stores ever again. Fortunately the supermarket I like to frequent has never asked me to mask up.
Yeah the one thing about America, our restrictions are much more lax than most countries, which frankly is alarming to me. I’ve had my vaccination card for 8 months now. Carry it with me always. I have only been asked ONCE by anyone to see it in all of that time. It was at a McDonalds of all places lol. They were asking for anyone who wanted to eat inside and that was the only place I encountered it. And it was specifically that McDonalds for some reason; no others ever asked for it.
One of our couple friends got their flights cancelled too last week to New York. They still made it, but had to take another lay over, due to both weather and smaller staff due to covid.
I will be curious to see what they ask me when we check in for the flight, but knowing America I don’t think they will ask us anything since I don’t think there are any restrictions now for being tested or vaccinated to fly, just keep your mask on basically. If you’re not vaccinated, fine, but people should still be tested at least for flights IMO, but whatever.
As far as mask wearing at Disney World, they are only forcing people to wear masks inside now. Outside you can choose to or not. That’s the standard here in California as well and we’re one of the stricter states.
Wow thanks for all responses guys!
We leave tomorrow and yes have N-95 masks. My girlfriend is much more concerned than I am but she still wants to go. So we’re going to try and be as careful as possible of course. Disney has been more lax (but way more strict than Florida for sure) but have heard of no major outbreaks from there at least.
Studies found no difference for likeliness of infection in unvaccinated between delta and omikron. so omikron is an immune escape variant and spreads most likely because the people dont behave as in 2020.