Rolling Stones, Gaga — and a KU doctor — to star in coronavirus TV special Saturday
Local coronavirus expert Dr. Dana Hawkinson will be seen by a global audience of millions on Saturday during a televised event supporting the fight against the worldwide pandemic.
Oh, and Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and a lengthy list of A-list celebrities will appear, too.
The two-hour “One World: Together At Home,” will air at 7 p.m. simultaneously on ABC, NBC, CBS, iHeartMedia and Bell Media networks, as well as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yahoo and several other digital outlets.
Jimmy Kimmel, who will host the show with his late-night counterparts Jimmy Fallon and Steven Colbert, has already interviewed Hawkinson, via cyberspace.
Hawkinson is the medical director of infectious prevention and control for the University of Kansas Health System.
Other staff members who showed off their dancing skills for the event’s organizers hope to make the final cut in a Jimmy Fallon music video that will air during the show.
“I understand that you are to follow Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder,” Hawkinson’s colleague Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer for the KU system, said to him during a Friday media briefing. “It is a star-studded event with all sorts of people … out there supporting health care workers and others involved in the front lines, first responders. I say star-studded but it has Dana Hawkinson in it.”
Stites and Hawkinson have become high-profile COVID-19 experts in Kansas City. Together they brief the media daily about the disease’s grip on the area.
Stites calls his colleague “Hawkeye” — or as Hawkinson is known around work, the infectious disease “rock star.”
Sites said Hawkinson’s interview will be the first one with a medical professional aired during the broadcast.
“So a shout-out to Dana,” he said. “That’s a big deal and a good sign of folks coming around this together.”
Lady Gaga’s Global Citizen organization organized the event, which will support health care workers and the World Health Organization.
President Donald Trump this week suspended funding for the international health agency as his administration reviews the WHO’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
“In the face of lockdowns and losses, it’s easy to feel helpless — but there are things we can all do to beat coronavirus,” says the Global Citizen website. “From taking care to wash our hands, to staying at home, to calling on governments, big business and billionaires to step up, it’s on all of us to take action. “
Other celebrities who will appear include Elton John, Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys and Pharrell Williams.
A six-hour streamed show beginning at 1 p.m. honoring health care workers will include performances by Niall Horan, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Adam Lambert, The Killers, Annie Lennox, Lady Antebellum and Common.
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