Following last year’s winter surge delaying the post-holiday break return to production on most TV shows, the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19 is doing it again – albeit to a lesser degree.
Deadline reports that “NCIS” paused production after a positive test believed to involve a cast member. While the intention is still for the show to resume filming next week, the trade says it may stay dark for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile “NCIS: LA” has delayed return to production until February.
Over on NBC, “Chicago Fire” suspended filming today after a number of positive tests with the hope of returning to production by early next week.
Disney meanwhile has pushed back a return to production across the board by a week with shows resuming on January 10th. Amazon Studios has delayed some shows restarting to either the 10th or 17th. Others like Universal Studios, Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios and Netflix are only pushing returns by a couple of days.
On the Universal lot, there are reportedly no major outbreaks or week-long production shutdowns involving series filming – even as dozens of positive cases were recorded over the past week during routine pre-production screenings.
Source: Deadline
