Tom Hanks Donates Blood for Vaccine After Battling COVID-19

Tom Hanks recently revealed he and his wife, Rita Wilson, volunteered to donate their blood for COVID-19 vaccine development.

The 63-year-old actor said this during an appearance on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me. And this comes after he and his wife announced they had tested positive for the novel virus while working in Australia back in March. They have since returned to the United States and have recovered.

“A lot of the questions [are] what do we do now? Is there something we can do?” Hanks said on the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! podcast. “And, in fact, we just found out that we do carry the antibodies. We have not only been approached, we have said, ‘Do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?’ In fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the ‘Hank-ccine.'”

Also, he told The National Defense Radio Show last Sunday: “Rita went through a tougher time than I did. She had a much higher fever and she had some other symptoms. She lost her sense of taste and smell. She got absolutely no joy from food for a better part of three weeks. She was so nauseous, she had to crawl on the floor from the bed to the facilities. It lasted a while.”