Star Trek: Discovery began production on it’s upcoming fourth season back in November, following strict pandemic protocols and safety measures to ensure the well-being of cast and crew — but as conditions in the Toronto area continue to trend dangerously, the show began an unplanned two-week shutdown last night after possible COVID-19 exposure.

Reported first by Deadline on Friday evening, Discovery production was halted after a “Zone A individual” — meaning someone who operates within primary on-set activities — was identified as being possibly exposed to a COVID-positive individual during off-set hours.

As Deadline reports:

Out of an abundance of caution, production officially halted yesterday. Which means, right now, Discovery is penciled in to turn the lights and phasers back on around May 6.

The decision to stop production came swiftly after a Zone A individual on Discovery came in close proximity earlier this week with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19.

The infected individual was unrelated to the show and the contact occurred away from Discovery’s Pinewood Studios set… the matter was detected through the contact tracing system widely employed in Canada’s largest city and elsewhere in the province of Ontario.

People operating within “Zone A” on a film or television production, as the SAG-AFTRA union protocols define, include on-camera talent and background actors, those who operate without social distancing and without the use of personal protective equipment (masks, etc.)

Zone A is any perimeter within which activity occurs without physical distancing or the use of PPE and includes all principal performers and background actors. This is the Zone with the most *potential* for transmission because some activity will take place in which PPE is removed. The number of people in Zone A will be severely limited.

If you are cleared for Zone A, you will likely be tested three times a week at a minimum; when circumstances require—such as extensive intimate scenes or scenes involving extreme physical exertion—testing may be daily.

While Deadline reports that the “Zone A individual” involved in this incident (who is currently quarantining for 14 days) encountered the COVID-positive individual away from the Discovery set, and has not been back to the set since exposure was identified — but the Secret Hideout production at Toronto’s Pinewood Studios decided to shut down filming through May 6 just to be safe.

The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds production was also (slightly) impacted by COVID exposure last week, however their incident occurred with an episodic guest star and a few members of the costume department — and did not require a production shutdown.

Back in October, Star Trek franchise boss Alex Kurtzman spoke a bit about the challenges of filming during pandemic times.

Everything is different. Everything is slower, between testing and… you know, your set doesn’t function like the set used to function.

There are groups that are vetted by the unions; ‘pods’ within the groups themselves; there are rotations in and out — of people — so that if somebody gets sick in your pod, the pod just gets removed and another pod gets pushed in but it doesn’t infect the whole group.

It is a massive, massive, militarized operation… but there’s nothing more important than the safety of our crew, and with things being slower, I think all networks and studios are recognizing that shows now become exponentially more expensive… not because of the budgets of the shows themselves, but because of the PPE required to keep the crews safe, which was never factored into the show budget.

All of us, every showrunner is dealing with having to face that down and figure out how to still produce a show of quality while also dealing with that, that very real issue… there are so many things we’re learning, [and] there’s no show that’s not worth keeping people safe for — that’s the goal.

[…]

I will say, honestly, that the whole rule is how few people can you have on set — in terms of who absolutely needs to be there. There should be no extraneous [people] or anything on set… the number one rule is just, “Who doesn’t need to be there?”