Coronavirus threatened Block 2020 production

Block production to continue following Prime Minister Scott Morrison's address this morning.

The new 2020 cast of The Block, alongside host Scott Cam, watched the Prime Minister's address on-site in Brighton, Melbourne this morning and thankfully he deemed construction sites are still open for business!

According to Nine Now The producers of The Block are going to unprecedented levels to make the site safe for everyone, are following all the advice from the Government and giving briefings to contestants throughout the day as the COVID-19 coronavirus situation develops.

The new 2020 cast of The Block, alongside host Scott Cam, watched the Prime Minister's address on-site in Brighton, Melbourne this morning.

This week the site has been closed to anyone who is not essential to production to mitigate any coronavirus infection.

Executive Producer and creator of The Block, Julian Cress, said they are taking the situation very seriously and will continue to do so, but as of now, the construction is continuing. "The Prime Minister was clear this morning that despite people's fears that they were just going to shut everything down, we can't."


Executive Producer and creator of The Block, Julian Cress, said they are taking the situation very seriously and will continue to do so, but as of now, the construction is continuing.

"We are going to follow all of the practices and all of the advice that has been given, we are practising social distancing, we are putting into effect everything that has been suggested from the beginning and we will continue to put things into effect as that advice gets updated, but for now, we want to continue."

Cress also told Nine Now that the production is under no illusions that things could change, and they are keeping a close eye on developments hour by hour. 

"I'm not going to sit here today and pretend that I know we can get to the end, because things are changing every day, but we are going to give it a hell of a shot," he said.

"The contestants want to see this thing to the very end they have made that very clear to us, our job is to help them do that." 

In a move that has never happened on The Block, every single supply that is needed to finish the build of the five houses has been ordered, Cress confirmed.

"We have also in the past 48 hours spoken to every one of our suppliers, we've looked into their supply chain issues, delivery schedules, with their help we have been able to pre-order everything we need to finish this job, which is a huge undertaking and unprecedented for us," he said.

"But with the help of our contestants and our builders, and suppliers, we have been able to in 48 hours order everything single fixture, fitting tile, building material, that we need to finish the entire Block, and we are having it all delivered at once to a remote warehouse site that we can access when we need to ourselves, so potentially we can see this thing through." 

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The Block will air on the Nine Network later in the year.