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 Hanks said that he and Wilson, both 63, were tested in
Australia, where he is working on a film, after they felt tired
and achy with slight fevers.
"To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we
were tested for the coronavirus and were found to be positive,"
Hanks said in the tweet.
The film star said that he and Wilson would be "tested, observed
and isolated" for as long as required.
The couple are the first major U.S. celebrities known to have
contracted COVID-19. The coronavirus has infected more than
1,000 people in the United States.
"Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?
We'll keep the world posted and updated," Hanks tweeted.
Hanks had traveled to Australia to begin filming an upcoming
movie about Elvis Presley. He is set to play Presley's manager,
Colonel Tom Parker, in the Warner Bros. production.
"We have been made aware that a company member from our Elvis
feature film, which is currently in pre-production in The Gold
Coast, Australia, has tested positive for COVID-19," Warner Bros
said in a statement.
"We are working closely with the appropriate Australian health
agencies to identify and contact anyone who may have come in
direct contact with the individual.
"The health and safety of our company members is always our top
priority, and we are taking precautions to protect everyone who
works on our productions around the world," the studio said.
The Warner Bros statement did not mention Hanks.
The actor is staying on the Gold Coast, east coast of Australia,
which has one of the country's main Hollywood studios and where
filming was to take place.
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"The Elvis biopic filming has been closed down. I understand it will
be 14 days quarantine and testing and ... our heart goes out to Tom
and his wife," Tom Tate, mayor of the Gold Coast, said in a press
conference.
The couple's son Chet took to Instagram to say he had spoken with
his parents on the phone and that both were fine and there was no
cause for major concern.
"Yeah, it's true, my parents got coronavirus. Crazy," he said in a
video message. "They're not even that sick. They're not worried
about it, they're not trippin but they're going through the
necessary health precautions obviously."
Wilson appeared on Monday on a chat show of free-to-air broadcaster
Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd. The network said employees who
had been in contact with her would be tested for the coronavirus and
quarantined for 14 days.
Hanks won best actor Academy Awards for his role in 1994's
"Philadelphia" in which he plays a man stricken with AIDS, and
"Forrest Gump" the following year. Wilson has appeared in such films
as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Runaway Bride".
The coronavirus has infected more than 121,000 people in 118
countries while over 4,300 people have died due to the virus, a
Reuters tally shows. In the United States at least 37 people have
died from the respiratory illness.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Byron Kaye in Sydney;
Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine, Chris Gallagher, Rama Venkat;
Editing by Sandra Maler, Christopher Cushing and Himani Sarkar)
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