On March 18, Will Smith, 51, and his wife of over 20 years, Jada Pinkett Smith, 48, brought their family together for a “special family Red Table Talk” episode to discuss the current COVID-19, Coronavirus, pandemic taking hold of the world with Dr. Michael Osterholm. While Will’s eldest son, 27-year-old Trey Smith, and Will and Jada’s daughter Willow, 19, were in attendance along with Jada’s mom, Adrienne Banfield Norris, 66, noticeably missing from the family meeting was Will and Jada’s son, Jaden Smith. But there was a vital reason why the 21-year-old was not seen at the table.
Amid a number of health professionals’ advice to maintain social distancing, staying roughly six-feet away from another person, Jaden chose not to attend the taping. Furthermore, Jaden’s reasoning came because his grandmother, Jada’s mom, is at an age where she falls into the most at-risk community to contract the Coronavirus. “Medical experts say that if people over 60 are infected, they are more likely to have severe, life-threatening disease, even if their general health is good,” the New York Times shared in a March 14 article. As such, Jaden did not participate, for fear his grandmother would be more susceptible.
But that didn’t stop the remaining family members at the table from discussing ways everyday people can contain the spread of the deadly virus. Will even proposed an analogy to explain the seriousness of the situation. “Imagine that our local hospital can handle 40 respiratory patients at one time. And under normal circumstances, 40 respiratory patients, for that hospital, is a lot. You know, they’ll be at 12 or 15, so they can handle it,” the actor said.
“The way the virus is moving and the reason why we need to practice social distancing and the idea of flattening the curve is if 50 people show up at that hospital at one time, to get 40 beds, right, now you have 10 people in critical condition that aren’t going to get help. And your mortality rate shoots through the roof. That’s the idea of overwhelming the system,” Will continued. “So there is a certain amount of people that we can handle nationally to come in with critical respiratory issues at one moment.”
As of March 18 there are 7,038 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States with fatalities reaching 97, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an effort to contain the virus, a number of state governments have ordered the closure of “non-essential” businesses, including restaurants, bars, and movie theaters. Social distancing has been one of the major recommended practices during this time, as countries across the globe begin to close their borders and lock down their country to contain the spread.