Vancouver-born movie star Ryan Reynolds has a simple message for young people across British Columbia: Don’t kill my mom.
In an audio recording posted to Twitter Friday morning, Reynolds discouraged young people from partying and potentially spreading COVID-19.
“I hope young people in B.C. don’t kill my mom frankly. Or David Suzuki. Or each other. Let’s not kill anyone. That’s reasonable,” Reynolds said.
The recording was in response to a comment earlier this week from B.C. Premier John Horgan asking both Reynolds and actor Seth Rogen to help get the message out about the virus.
A few hours after Reynolds’ reply, Rogen also took to Twitter to accept the premier’s challenge.
Reynolds also joked his mother would much rather be scoping out Kits Beach for a man in his 30s than cooped up in her apartment.
But sprinkled in with the wry humour was a serious message.
“Young people are partying. Which is of course dangerous. What they probably don’t know is that thousands of young people are not just getting sick from coronavirus, they are dying from it too,” Reynolds said.
“It’s terrible it affects our most vulnerable. British Columbia is home to some of the coolest old people on earth.”
British Columbia has seen a substantial and sudden increase in cases of COVID-19, mainly linked to people in their 20s and 30s. Provincial health office Dr. Bonnie Henry has expressed concern the spread is linked to parties indoors where guests are drinking and often don’t know each other before the event.
Data released on Thursday shows young people are far less likely to end up in the hospital with the virus than older people, but there is a likelihood the virus could be spread.
“As we have more transmission, more exposure events, the probability increases that somebody’s going to take this home to their family, to their granny, their grandpa, to their long-term care home where they work, the hospital where they work, the correctional facility where they work, the work environment where they may be in close contact with other people,” Henry said.
The B.C. government has been working closely with social media influencers to try and get the message out to young people about the dangers of the virus.
The campaign is targeted around events in Vancouver and Kelowna.
While Reynolds said people probably don’t want to take medical advice from him, he did divulge perhaps a little-known secret.
“I don’t think a lot of people know this. But I used to be Hugh Jackman.”
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