MSNBC's Chris Hayes fears being sidelined by coronavirus: "30 Rock does not feel like the right place to be"

Esquire

The MSNBC All In with Chris Hayes host, who's been sounding the alarm on coronavirus for weeks, says it's been "intense" working in an empty newsroom at 30 Rockefeller Center with staffers who are mostly working from home. "We’re one of those industries that I would say is sort of an essential service, right? You just have to keep going," he tells Esquire. "I assume I’m going to keep broadcasting through this. We’re trying to figure out a way to have a remote camera in a location that I can be in that's not 30 Rock or somewhere I can be in if I’m under quarantine or get sick. The odds of that are not low if the curve goes the way that I think it is." He adds: "The amount of production we’re doing is less. We’re stripping down the show to try to really dramatically reduce people’s risk. I’m trying to go to the building as little as possible so I’m basically working from home until like 4 or 5." Hayes says MSNBC is preparing a house set up in case he has to work remotely. "What I worry most about is either getting sick unrelated to this but having to self isolate for awhile and not being able to broadcast, or actually getting the virus and being relatively low on the symptomatic scale and also not being able to broadcast," he says. "And both of those just seem kind of unbearable right now. To just not be able to do the show because I’m self-quarantining."