Coronavirus

A terrifying scene is playing out in England, as yet another person with whom the Queen interacted has tested positive for the coronavirus.

A royal footman -- a man who is reportedly in regular contact with the Queen -- has the virus, according to The Sun.

As we reported, Prince Charles has also tested positive and had spent time with his mother not too long before his diagnosis.

The Queen, at 93, is squarely in the high-risk group. The Palace says she remains in good health.

The Queen and Prince Phillip have moved to Windsor Castle, according to the paper, presumably because everyone involved thinks it's safer. It's especially scary for Prince Phillip, who has had some serious health issues recently.

Disney princesses and characters are getting hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic -- they're outta work and struggling to get by -- but not just because Disneyland is closed.

With governments banning gatherings large and small, there's simply no work for the folks who dress up as your favorite Disney princesses and movie characters ... and one group is about to lose a million bucks.

American Immersion Theatre + Princess Party tells TMZ ... they've had bookings canceled left and right, setting up a huge financial hit of about $200,000 for March and April alone, and as the pandemic drags on, they're estimating a loss of $1 million in gross income.

The troupe tells us this is normally the busiest time for events, but there are no more shows on the books this Spring and Summer, which spells doom for their 2,000 actors across 27 different cities.

The theater company is used to working birthday parties, murder mysteries at restaurants and volunteering at hospitals ... but the virus' rapid spread is putting an end to all that.

American Immersion Theatre + Princess Party is hoping things start picking back up by June with some small birthdays before another wave of big events in September ... and in the meantime, they're booking about 7 virtual gigs a day where princesses and characters interact with kids virtually.

Still, the virtual gigs won't make up for the 150 events that are being canceled each week ... and it's a bad sign for the actors who count this as a full-time job.

Anna Faith and Lexie Grace, who went viral in 2014 for being "Frozen" lookalikes, say they feel awful for the kids who had a trip to the Mouse House or a birthday party scrapped by the virus.

Anna and Lexie say they're getting some offers to do personal bday wishes, and they put together a video for parents to show their kids at home, and it's free.

It's pretty bad over at the Los Angeles Princess Company too ... they tell us they're no longer working 6 to 10 parties per weekend, and everything for the next several weeks is canceled, meaning a loss of $500 to $1000 each weekend.

The company is going virtual as well ... offering FaceTime calls with their princesses, but it's just not enough and the small biz is frightened after 7 years of steady work.

Amazing Kids Parties is also feeling the pinch and getting creative ... they say parents are canceling their kids' parties, but looking for alternatives. AKP is now offering virtual meet-and-greets with princesses and other "at-home" birthday packs.

Bottom line ... all the Disney princesses are feeling like Rapunzel these days.

The Weeknd defied the odds for success after he refused to put his album release on ice in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic ... and now he looks like a genius!!!

Here's the deal ... The Weeknd announced a March 20 release date for his new project "After Hours" long before the virus reached the United States ... and made the difficult decision to keep the date as things got serious.

We're told there were fears the album would flop because of a lack of marketing opportunities ... TV appearances were drying up as the outbreak started shutting down Hollywood.

Artists like Lady Gaga had already postponed her own project, "Chromatica."

The Weeknd trusted his work and his fans, and wanted to push forward with the release ... so he made the ultimate decision to drop the album, giving people a much-needed distraction and some joy in a dark time.

So far, The Weeknd's looking pretty smart ... the album passed 1 BILLION streams in its first week, and the first day saw 100 million streams. At one point, "After Hours" songs held the top 12 spots on the Apple Music Top 100.

Americans fear there's about to be a violent side effect of the pandemic -- looters -- so they're preparing their homes for the you-know-what to hit the fan.

Here's the deal ... folks have been researching and buying new home security systems from 2 of the biggest providers. Honchos at SimpliSafe tell TMZ ... their sales are up 86% in just the last few weeks, and they've seen a 27% spike in Google searches for their products.

We're told new customers aren't only looking to protect their own homes, but also those where their aging relatives are living under quarantine.

This all adds up ... we've seen the panic-buying and, in some cases, hoarding of supplies -- and now those people are looking to defend and protect their stockpiles. Likewise, there have been long lines to purchase guns.

ADT bigwigs are aware of the concerns, and tell us they've been reminding homeowners how important their security systems are in these times. The company's also adjusted procedures for in-person repairs. We're told their techs are now hand-washing and sanitizing more often ... along with screening customers before going to their home.

As we reported ... cops in Los Angeles and New York fear an incoming crime wave during the pandemic, particularly break-ins ... so, clearly, more and more are taking the "better safe than sorry" approach at home.

Quarantine and chill has video game connoisseurs going nuts, and the console that's scratching their itch is the Nintendo Switch ... something you'll have to pay big bucks for nowadays.

It's true ... Nintendo Switches are the go-to video game carrier right now during the outbreak, and it seems like folks who figured that out too late are now having to pony up and pay a premium price if they wanna get their hands on one. We're talking $200-$300 markups, maybe more.

We've spoken to big box and electronic retailers like Best Buy and Target out here in the L.A. area, as well as some locations in NYC ... they all tell us the same thing -- they're completely out of Switches. No locations within 250 miles of L.A. are shipping them either.

That's not to say you can't still get a hold of one -- we've heard of some lucky gamers in L.A. snagging one off of GameStop about a week ago out of sheer luck ... it just got delivered this weekend. GameStop's site says they're out and on backorder 'til April 30, but we know one person who recently checked and found they had a few in stock online for a brief time, and they jumped on it at the regular $299 price, too. That's a steal these days.

Fact is ... if you head on over to Amazon right now, you'll see they still have them available for purchase. You'll just have to pay upwards of $400 to $500 or more to get one, which is overpriced ... but also how the market works. Supply and demand, baby!

While tons of people who have a Nintendo Switch right now are resorting to classic Mario games -- like Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc. -- and playing online with their friends ... the true hot ticket Switch item at the moment in Animal Crossing, which just came out with a new edition, "New Horizons," this past week to incredibly high fanfare.

We've heard of lines out the door -- even with quarantine regulations and social distancing in place -- over the past few days at places like Walmart, Best Buy and others, so people could pick up their pre-ordered copy. It's a simulation-type video game ... escapism at its finest.

Don't worry about David Geffen, the multi-billionaire is staying as far away from the coronavirus as possible aboard his personal escape raft ... that just happens to be a $590 million yacht.

Yes, the media mogul is aboard the "Rising Sun" cruising the Caribbean Sea, where, unfortunately for him, he has WiFi, and decided to drop a pretty tone-deaf anecdote to the world ... considering the pandemic and all.

Geffen posted a glorious wide-shot of his vessel with the caption, "Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I'm hoping everybody is staying safe."

Under normal circumstances, the Internet would just hate him for flaunting his wealth. But, there's a new normal in town ... so now the Internet is ripping him for bragging that he's NOT quarantined with 3 screaming kids, a spouse and one in-law in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment in Queens ... while terrified of COVID-19.

Hard to argue against that backlash. Fact is, Geffen's been filthy rich so long, he probably only thinks of his famous and wealthy friends looking at his IG -- and forgets there are 7 billion other aggressively-less-wealthy people who will eventually see it too.

On the other hand, the guy gives a lot of his wealth to charities -- so, hopefully this becomes a teachable moment and we all move forward.

We will say this -- pretty impressive if Geffen truly is isolated on that thing. It's usually packed with A-list celebs, business titans ... and their girlfriends.

Jon Bon Jovi's already got some winning song lyrics to his finish-the-story type community song -- and he might wanna consider hiring some of these folks ... 'cause they're good.

The rocker picked out three verses to finish out his made-up tune called "Do What You Can, Our Story" -- which he kicked off last weekend with a verse of his own and the chorus. Welp, people heard his call loud and clear ... JBJ says he's received countless submissions across several different platforms. Some performed it, others just wrote their lyrics.

The three submissions Jon played out live on camera were incredibly well-written and, obviously, topical to the coronavirus outbreak everyone's dealing with right now. Our particular favorite ... Jeffrey Baron, via YouTube, whose verse sounds like it's from Bob Dylan's songbook or something. Well done.

The whole venture's pretty neat -- because Jon set up the rhythm and cadence of the song fairly easily in his first post ... it's relatively easy for people to plug in their own verses seamlessly. Jon sings off their verse, and then weaves in his own hook right after.

He says he's gonna keep it going and keep singing people's lyrics, so he encourages more submissions and more participation. Unclear if he'll eventually pick a few verses as his favorite and deem the ultimate winner, but for now ... it seems like there's a lot he likes.

Miami's first COVID-19 related death was a guy who went to an annual beach party only weeks ago -- tragically, the national alarms didn't fully sound off in time to warn him.

Israel Carreras is the 40-year-old man who passed due to complications he developed after contracting coronavirus. He died in a Miami-area hospital Friday night after developing a severe cough, which reportedly left him mute ... with extreme breathing difficulty.

Earlier this month, Israel and his boyfriend, Franco, attended the Winter Party Festival along the shores of Nikki Beach, South Beach and others between the dates of March 4 and March 10. Thousands of people attend each year, and 2020 was no different, as you can see.

People packed the beaches, and were pretty much crammed in like sardines. Practically nobody was practicing social distancing at that point, and the danger of coronavirus spreading as fast as it ultimately did hadn't quite registered like it did the week after WPF ended.

The week of March 8 started seeing multiple events being shut down, canceled, postponed in droves -- and even scheduled sporting events and entire seasons were getting scrapped outright. But, for events like Winter Party, it was already in full swing by then ... clearly not everybody got the message or understood the importance of staying away from crowds as of early March.

As for Israel, his partner says the positive diagnosis came down just this past Monday ... and his condition quickly deteriorated. He says he couldn't even see his boyfriend in person, and could only FaceTime ... at which point they were signing because Israel couldn't speak.

At least 9 other people, so far, who attended Winter Party Festival have reportedly contracted COVID-19 as well.

RIP

The Detroit Pistons are taking a huge step in helping out their community amid the coronavirus outbreak -- offering health officials a massive space they own and operate to be used for anything and everything COVID-19 related.

The Athletic's James Edwards III broke the news Saturday, saying Pistons brass are willing to put their new performance center facility, which opened in October, on the line for scientists and doctors in and around the Detroit area for "whatever best use" they see fit.

James notes ... that could be for testing, hospital patients starting to overflow the local medical facilities or even for medical staff who might need a neutral, clean place to sleep.

He also says nothing is official yet, but discussions are ongoing and the team has made clear they are down to help out however they can, including lending the space ... which is a 185,000 square foot state-of-the-art building that normally encompasses all sorts of businesses in a one-stop-shop type of setting. It's massive, and would certainly go a long way right now.