There can be no discounting the power of celebrity when it comes to raising awareness for a cause. It was certainly on display over the weekend, when the Warriors’ Stephen Curry went on Instagram Live for the better part of half an hour to talk about the new coronavirus. It helped, of course, that he had Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, by his side. “Information is power,” he noted, and promptly discussed the importance of taking preventive measures with the key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Curry turned out to be an ideal host because he was quite informed about the issue. Perhaps it was because he needed to know more about it beforehand; he suffered from influenza in early March, and the Warriors were concerned enough about his condition to monitor him closely. In recalling the circumstances, coach Steve Kerr told NBC Bay Area’s Logan Murdoch that “when he came down, I felt somewhat responsible because I invited him to take part in the Oakland festivities.” The bench tactician was referring to a peace walk from East Oakland Youth Development Center to Allen Temple Baptist Church that they took part in to celebrate the drop of gun violence in the city.
In any case, the session was a hit, drawing a high of 50,000 followers, including former United States President Barack Obama, and generating an aggregate 93,000 hours of watch time across 146 countries. The number translates to a whopping 10.6 years, with one- to two-fifths of viewers under the age of 35. That the demographic kept abreast is significant, and not just because it tends to lose interest faster and becomes inclined to surf through alternative sources of information or entertainment. It’s also more predisposed to cling to a false sense of security and, therefore, resist community quarantine measures in place to arrest the pandemic. As Fauci pointed out, “what we are starting to see is that there are some people who are younger … healthy, vigorous, who don’t have any underlying conditions who are getting seriously ill. It’s still a very, very small minority, but it doesn’t mean that young people should say ‘I’m completely exempt from any risk of getting seriously ill.’”
Significantly, Curry had the foresight to preserve the enlightening interview. Those who missed it can simply turn to his Twitter account to see it in its entirety. There are certainly worse ways to spend time in self-isolation than to know best practices and make informed assessments of the future. After all, the virus isn’t going away anytime soon. “There’s a dichotomy between people who are frightened to death and people who don’t even believe it,” Fauci noted. “It’s not convenient to lock yourself in … but we’re going through a time when we have to pull together … and do the kinds of things that can put an end to it.” Indeed.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994.
