Although Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced strict rules regarding leaving your home amid the coronavirus pandemic, shows including Good Morning Britain and This Morning are still going ahead - while other shows, including Lorraine and Loose Women have been temporarily postponed in keeping with government guidelines. So why are the breakfast shows still able to continue airing? Find out here...
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The Prime Minister has encouraged everyone except 'key workers' to remain at home - and it appears that This Morning presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield fall into that category. According to the Department of Education, the government considers broadcast journalists providing public service to be a key role - and the show has indeed recently been dedicated to advising the public on how to best take care of themselves in the current pandemic.
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Holly and Phil will continue to present This Morning
The hosts of the morning magazine show addressed the situation themselves on Tuesday's morning episode. Opening the show, Holly began: "Right let's start by explaining, probably for the first time ever, why we are here today." Taking over, Phillip continued: "The government has classed us as an essential service for the time being to bring the latest news on the virus, to answer your concerns with our doctors, to offer useful advice and to hopefully lighten the load as only This Morning knows how."
The two then went on to explain the lengths that the crew have taken to comply with government guidelines. Holly stated: "We are running with skeleton staff from now on and with lots of people working from home and all our regular behind the scenes services cut back to an absolute minimum." Co-host Phillip added: "A lot of our crew have just brought the cameras through from Good Morning Britain so we're using their cameras, there are millions more of us quite rightly staying at home though, and if you are new to us, hello good morning we're hoping you're going to stay with us for the next couple of hours or so."
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The show has made several changes to keep up with government guidelines, which includes the hosts staying far apart from one another, and reducing the staff. Phillip recently revealed that he and Holly were doing their own makeup ahead of the show as the beauty team have had to stop working. Filming a behind the scenes video from the makeup room, he said: ""No glam squad now, I just made myself up. I don't think I look like Barbara Cartland." Holly laughed, saying: "I think you look like you, do I look like me?" Phil continued: "It's just the two of us, usually this makeup room is a hot bed of gossip and goodness knows what. Our whole team. No team so we made ourselves up, but the gossip was still good!"
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