Trevor Noah talks "The Daily Social Distancing Show," why it's important to keep laughing
Comedian Trevor Noah is no different than the millions of other people across the U.S. confined to their homes as a result of safety precautions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus. He is among a number of celebrities using their public platform to provide comfort to fans while emphasizing the importance of following health guidelines, reaching his regular audience with "The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah," taped in his living room.
"People are searching for human interaction and genuine interactions," Noah said during an appearance on "CBS This Morning" Tuesday.
Noah said that social distancing and working on the show with his best friend, who is also his neighbor, helps keep him "sane" as he processes the day's news.
The comedian said he missed hearing the laughter that his live audience usually supplied, but promised to continue doing the show as long as he is able. With today's new reality, that means using laughter and comedy to help "people stay indoors."
"For me, the laughing is my way of going like, hey, we're still in this. We're still human beings. We still have a reason to live. We got to take it seriously, but it's also not the end of the world and I think we have to find that balance," he said.
Noah urged viewers to follow the U.S.'s mandated 15-day social distancing period, but to remember that "it feels apocalyptic, but the world is not ending."
"People are panicking," the Comedy Central star said. "If you just went to the store and just grabbed something, 'Oh good, they still got the cheese puffs,' everybody would start grabbing the cheese puffs. We don't need to panic. There's enough food. Whenever people panic, the production line gets strained."
He continued, "If we breathe and we work through this thing, we can come out on the other side even better than we did coming in. We just have to breathe."
Noah credited modern technology for allowing him to reach his weekday audience.
"I have two or three phones, and then I have a few pads that I'm using as well, and then I upload all of that using the internet to my editors, and then my editors combine that with graphics that have been loaded from my graphics person at home, and then the team puts that together. And then each step, basically people are sending a file to each other and they move it along until finally it gets sent off to broadcast. So, It's really impressive. We're basically making an elaborate TikTok," he said.
Before leaving, Noah encouraged "every person living in America" to pay attention to how the government was "planning to protect people."
"I know everybody wants to protect businesses, but people need to understand businesses are a collection of people and if the people have food and if the people can survive, people can rebuild businesses," he said. "But businesses, as we've shown unfortunately, will hoard money. And so we have to find a balance between keeping businesses alive, and but most importantly keeping human beings alive during this time."
Noah pointed out that it was not just the elderly who are most at risk, but also "low-income" people who "won't be able to sustain themselves if they can't work" as well as the young people "who are in the ICU as well."
"The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" airs Monday through Friday on Comedy Central, at 11 p.m. Eastern.