Emmerdale and Coronation Street forced to shut down filming amid Covid chaos

Emmerdale and Coronation Street have reportedly both been forced to halt filming amid Covid outbreaks among the cast and crew and the need to re-write storylines.

Production of Emmerdale has been stopped for all of this week in light of a coronavirus outbreak according to the Mirror, with bosses calling for filming to be paused for the set have "intensive cleaning".

Meanwhile, Corrie is set to stop filming on Monday for two weeks because the ongoing pandemic has meant producers are having to re-write scripts and storylines.

It's not thought that the interruption will cause a change in usual programming for the award winning shows.

A Coronation Street rep revealed, "Coronation Street will pause filming from next Monday, 25 January for two weeks to undertake some rewriting of stories and scripts as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We will also be taking the opportunity to review all health and safety requirements to ensure we continue to provide a safe working environment for the cast, crew and production team.

"This pause in filming won't affect our ability to deliver six episodes of Coronation Street each week."

Meanwhile an Emmerdale spokesperson confirmed that the virus had been detected within the cast and crew.

"We paused filming on Emmerdale last week due to some members of the team testing positive for Covid 19.

"We've carried out proper track and trace measures on those cases and undertook intensive cleaning of the production building, whilst reinforcing the health and safety protocols we have in place.

"We're returning to filming from this Monday, 25 January. This pause in filming will have no impact on our ability to continue to broadcast six episodes of Emmerdale each week."

Last year the beloved British soaps had no choice but to stop production for weeks while the first Covid lockdown was in place.

ITV bosses had to change TV scheduling in order to spread out the remaining episodes of the soaps to keep them on screens for as long as possible, while the likes of EastEnders and Hollyoaks took similar measures.

Soap filming has now resumed with social distancing being implemented on set and crew using clever camera tricks to make it appear as though characters are close.