How Harry Styles Is Dealing with the Coronavirus
The coronavirus has thrown a wrench into a lot of major events this year. The City of Austin cancelled South by Southwest due to concerns over spreading the COVID-19 virus and Miami postponed the Ultra Music Festival. MGM and EON Productions delayed the release of No Time to Die until November, when hopefully the virus will be under control. Meanwhile Harry Styles is still on tour.
Styles stopped by the Howard Stern Show on March 2. During the interview, Styles discussed the songs Taylor Swift wrote about him, Zayn Malick leaving One Direction and more subjects. Self-professed germophobe Stern also asked Styles about the coronavirus. Here’s what the singer said.
Harry Styles is waiting and seeing about the coronavirus
It’s still early stages in the coronavirus outbreak, so Styles is monitoring the situation. Right now he feels the public is about 50/50 on whether to panic, so he doesn’t take it lightly.
“It’s one of those things,” Styles said. “Every two people you speak to, one of them says it’s really scary and the other person says it’s not that scary. But then people are dying so that is pretty scary.”
Harry Styles is following medical advice about the coronavirus
The number one advice medical professionals have shared during the coronavirus alert is to wash one’s hands, and wash them thoroughly. 20 seconds is the recommended wash time, perhaps the length of a Harry Styles chorus.
“It’s one of those things where it’s kind of the simple stuff,” Styles said. “You wash your hands all the time. I don’t really know.”
Harry Styles hasn’t cancelled any tour dates yet
Harry Styles is still performing around the world. He is monitoring the situation, should any of the cities or countries he’s playing clamp down on public gatherings.
“It’s kind of one of those things where the traveling thing is hard,” Styles said.” You don’t really know how it’s going to affect that stuff. But then the touring is not the most important thing. My tour isn’t the most important thing if there’s this crazy pandemic. I think in Sweden they just banned gatherings of over 1000 people, so it’s kind of just waiting and seeing.”
Even he’s read the Dean Koontz book about the virus
Fans of horror author Dean Koontz pointed out that his 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness featured a virus with more than one parallel to COVID-19. A friend texted Styles the passages in question and might have made him a believer.
“Did you see the Dean Koontz book, The Eyes of Darkness?” Styles asked Stern. “Somebody texted me these pages from The Eyes of Darkness. It’s basically predicting the whole thing. It’s crazy. It says around 2020 a pneumonia-like virus will sweep through the world. There’ll be no known treatment. It will come back 10 years later and then disappear. In the book, the name of the strain is Wuhan-400. It’s really crazy.”
Koontz colleague Stephen King also wrote about a deadly plague in The Stand. However, King’s was more general. He certainly didn’t name the virus after the city in China where coronavirus first appeared.
