“Dancing With the Stars” production was hit with multiple cases of COVID-19 following its Season 31 debut, which premiered on Disney+ this week.
“Over the course of five days, there were a total of four Covid positives among more than 300 production employees,” a spokesperson for the show said in a statement to TheWrap. “All four individuals work in completely different departments that do not have in-person contact with each other, based on our pod system.”
The statement continued: “Contact tracing was immediately conducted. All close contacts were notified and put on an increased testing cadence. No close contact of the four positive production employees has since tested positive. The entire set has been disinfected. As an extra precaution, we asked the majority of employees to work from home.”
“DWTS” has been cleared to continue production, based on the above information, according to the spokesperson.
Season 31 kicked off Monday night on Disney+, airing live coast-to-coast. For their first performances, the celebrity partners got to pick a song that fit the “premiere party” theme — prompting dances to songs from Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” to “The Time of My Life” by David Cook.
It was Charli D’Amelio and returning pro Mark Ballas’ cha cha to “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion that topped the leaderboard. Backstage, after the show, the pro reacted to getting the night’s top scores.
“It felt great,” he said of being back in the ballroom. “It felt the same but new, fresh, nostalgic, you know? And then being out there with [Charli] – it was a good time. I felt really good tonight. And it’s great to be in the top spot. We weren’t anticipating that. The only thing we wanted to do was work super hard, maximize our rehearsal time and just do the best that we possibly could. And we had a good night tonight.”
“DWTS” airs Mondays at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on Disney+.
