‘The Bachelor’: How COVID-19 Changes the Show’s ‘Sick Dates’

The Bachelor franchise has been working around the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic for years. For the first time in season 27, the Bachelor caught the virus, and production had to figure out how to keep the show moving. Prior to the pandemic, the lead has been under the weather before and even had a “sick date” in these instances. In a post-pandemic world, these sick dates will likely never happen again.

[WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Bachelor 2023 Week 5.]

Zach Shallcross tested positive for coronavirus during ‘The Bachelor’ Season 27

During The Bachelor Season 27 Week 5, Zach Shallcross tested positive for coronavirus. Zach isolated himself from the women and had to miss a group date and 1-on-1 with Charity Lawson. However, production couldn’t afford to just wait around because of their tight schedule.

For this reason, The Bachelor hosted the first-ever virtual rose ceremony. The women talked to Zach through an iPad during the cocktail party portion and figured out creative ways to connect with the lead. Kaity Biggar spoke to Zach through his hotel room door and brought him a gift basket. In a deleted scene from the cocktail party, Ariel had a drink delivered to the Bachelor.

‘The Bachelor’ franchise has featured ‘sick dates’ in the past

Season 27 isn’t the first time the lead in The Bachelor franchise has fallen ill. However, with coronavirus, Zach couldn’t be in close proximity to any of the contestants. Prior to the pandemic, production has worked around illnesses as best they could with “sick dates.”

“On Ali [Fedotwosky]’s season, she got sick, and Chris [Lambton] came to her room with soup.” The Bachelor exec producer Bennett Graebner told Entertainment Weekly, “Emily [Maynard] was very sick in London during her season; she lost her voice. We’ve had these issues in the past.”

Connor Saeli visited Hannah Brown in her hotel room when she had to cancel their 1-on-1 date during her season of The Bachelorette. In this case, Hannah wasn’t sick with anything contagious. The Bachelorette told Connor that she passed out and went to the hospital to get fluids. Connor brought her soup, flowers, and a card and left Hannah to rest.

Testing will be an important part of the franchise moving forward

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how the show continues when contestants or the lead aren’t feeling well. Producer Nicole Woods points out that feeling run down isn’t uncommon with the show’s busy schedule. In the future, testing will be an important part of figuring out how to continue.

“As you can imagine, lack of sleep, lack of nutritional food, exhaustion, all of that can also make you feel run down and give you symptoms that could be COVID symptoms,” the producer told EW. “In the bubbles, I really don’t feel like we were faced with that. It will be interesting moving forward how we handle that, but we really rely heavily on the testing.”

New episodes of The Bachelor Season 27 air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.