
Jonathan LaPaglia, the host of Australian Survivor, has stated that 80 staff members, including himself, were affected by Covid or food illness while filming the latest season.
Despite not having to fend for themselves in a remote location like the castaways, the crew found itself in the middle of a unique difficulty when they were ill.
The tenth season, which premiered later this month, saw the production return to Samoa after the pandemic forced the previous two seasons to be shot in Australia.
Despite making it over, calamity hit soon after, with disease sweeping through the group of behind-the-scenes workers.
‘Once we lose people, I mean someone else needs to take up that job, and when you have at least 30 people go down, and then another 50 go down with food poisoning – it’s just tough, really tough,’ host Jonathan LaPaglia told the Daily Telegraph.
LaPaglia, the long-running host of the Australian Survivor franchise, is also an actress who has appeared in NCIS and The Sopranos.

But, since 2016, he’s also been travelling to places like Samoa and Fiji to film the adventurous reality game show.
While LaPaglia avoided the stomach illness, he got infected with Covid and tested positive on the final day of production for the Heroes V Villians series.
‘I heard a lot of anecdotal stories, you know, people saying it was nothing but a little cold and it was done and dusted,’ the former doctor added.
‘But it kicked my arse. It knocked me out for about six weeks.’
Speaking about just how stressful it became to try and keep the show going, he said they were able to replace crew, but it wasn’t easy.
‘We’re working with an Australian budget and (ours) is pretty healthy, but when you compare it to the US – it’s paltry,’ he said.
He added: ‘So we don’t have a lot of redundancy when it comes to crew.’
Everyday Australians, past contestants, and celebrities will appear in the upcoming season, including former AFL player Shaun Hampson, former Home and Away actress Sharni Vinson, Real Housewives of Melbourne star Anjali Rao, and Olympic pole vaulter Liz Parnov.
Survivor airs on Channel Ten in Australia.