Irish music star Daniel O’Donnell has told the public that it is ‘important’ to practice social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The popular singer was a on the Today Show on RTE but carried out his interview via Skype.
He said that he and his wife Majella have followed the government guidelines as best they can, and insisted the public must do the same.
O’Donnell said: “We’re fine, we’re here in Donegal, Majella and myself. Really, we haven’t seen anybody other than I went up to the shop yesterday to get a few things but apart from that we don’t see anybody.
“People are not visiting, we’re on phones, talking to people in that way.
“But I think it’s important that we, as much as we can, stay just with the people that you’re living with and if you can stay in that’s the way to go.
“Because when we see now, I heard you saying there that they’re expecting the amount of people that will test positive to be less than they initially said.
“We can’t relax because we’ve been told that..because it’s in our hands to keep the well well.”
It was a caring message to the nation and O’Donnell’s sentiments were echoed by the presenters on the show.
He also revealed that in the coronavirus chaos, an online fraudster had set up an account in his name and was trying to con his fans into donating money to a ‘worthy cause’.
The 58-year-old explained: “We were made aware of it by somebody calling into the office in Dublin… sent in a message saying she didn’t think that this was me, the way she was answered or something.
“It just didn’t sound like me and then they looked into it. It is a fake Instagram account that was set up in my name and there was a way you could click onto something to donate.
“The account was fake, the phone numbers were fake, the emails – everything was fake.
“The guards can’t do much until somebody who has donated money goes and reports it because I think that’s what has to happen.
“Hopefully there was nobody caught by it I’m not sure what the situation was.
“There’s always vulnerable people and there’s always people who think, ‘Oh Daniel’s asking for this, it must be legitimate’. They never go any further from thinking it could be a fake.
“The good part of social media, if you want to get a message out that’s important, then it reaches the world instantly.
“But in this case it also reaches when it’s not legitimate or if it’s a bad message and that goes out instantly too so you really have to act very quickly to try and get the word out that this is not legitimate.”
