The United Kingdom’s Prince William asked a paramedic if media coverage of the coronavirus seemed overdone.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are in the middle of a three-day trip to Ireland to meet with government officials and health professionals on the coronavirus. The British royalty met with a handful of people at a Guinness Storehouse on one of the first stops of their tour, according to Sky News.
“I bet everyone’s like ‘I’ve got coronavirus, I’m dying,’ and you’re like ‘No, you’ve just got a cough,'” William asked National Ambulance Service paramedic Joe Mooney. “Does it seem quite dramatic about coronavirus at the moment? Is it being a little bit hyped up, do you think, in the media?”
It is unclear how the paramedic responded.
William also joked with the assembled crowd that he and his wife “are spreading coronavirus, sorry.”
“We’re keeping an eye on that, so do tell us if we need to stop,” William said.
The disease has infected roughly 92,000 people in more than 75 countries since it first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December. More than 3,200 people have died of the disease. The U.K. health department has confirmed 51 cases across the country.
The British government classified the coronavirus as a “serious and imminent threat to public health” in early February, enacting emergency protocols to contain cases of the virus in England before its spread. The new regulations have granted authorities the power to forcibly constrain and quarantine patients.
