Tom Hanks’ Coronavirus Glove Photo, Explained

Tom Hanks announced this week that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have both tested positive for the coronavirus, sharing his update along with a photo of a plastic glove tossed in a hazardous waste bag. While the photo he chose may seem random to some, the actor’s followers know that it was anything but.

Over the years, Hanks has developed a fascination for sharing photos of lost gloves and other items, like socks and shoes, but it seems the article of clothing he’s most fond of is gloves.

In fact, the Oscar winner’s two most recent Instagram posts were both about lost items — over the weekend, he shared a photo of a pink child’s glove sitting on a brick wall and on Feb. 20 he posted a shot of a pair of socks lying on the ground in front of a valet sign wit the caption, “Park these socks for me.”

In 2013, Hanks explained his interest in lost gloves during an interview with CBS This Morning.

“I think these are fascinating slices of life. I [put captions]. ‘Give me five,’ that’s one of them,” he said. “Here’s what I think. It’s freezing cold outside, and it’s no fun to have a bare hand when it’s freezing cold. And yet, someone has lost a glove. That means half their life has disappeared for the course of the day. Sometimes they’re pretty little knitted gloves, sometimes they’re hard working … What is a better metaphor for the loneliness of the city? Of a single lost glove?”

All this to say, Hanks didn’t just randomly decide to include a glove his post announcing his diagnosis.

“Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia,” Hanks wrote in his post. “We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”

“Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?”

“We’ll keep the world posted and updated,” he concluded. “Take care of yourselves!”

Photo Credit: Getty / Axelle/Bauer-Griffin