Grey's Anatomy Season 17 Will Address the Coronavirus Pandemic

Grey's Anatomy is ready to add the current real-life public health crisis to the lengthy list of disasters faced by the surgeons of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Executive producer Krista Vernoff has revealed that the ABC drama is planning to address the coronavirus pandemic when it returns for Season 17.

Vernoff appears in a new Emmys panel called "Quaranstreaming: Comfort TV That Keeps Us Going," which premieres in full on YouTube and Emmys.com on Tuesday night at 8/7c. As first reported by Entertainment Weekly, Vernoff confirmed on the panel that the show plans to incorporate COVID-19 into the storyline of its next season. 

"We're going to address this pandemic for sure," Vernoff explained. "There's no way to be a long-running medical show and not do the medical story of our lifetimes."

Vernoff also revealed that after hearing from real-life doctors about the ongoing coronavirus crisis, she began to see similarities between what they are grappling with in the real world and what the character of Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd), a trauma surgeon and war veteran, has been trained for on the show.

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"Every year, we have doctors come and tell us their stories, and usually they're telling their funniest or craziest stories. This year, it has felt more like therapy," Vernoff said. She noted that the doctors talk about the pandemic "as war — a war that they were not trained for. And that's been one of our big conversations about Owen, is that he's actually trained for this in a way that most of the other doctors aren't." Vernoff added that she feels Grey's Anatomy has "an opportunity and a responsibility to tell some of those stories." 

A premiere date for Grey's Anatomy Season 17 has not yet been set. Grey's Anatomy Seasons 1-16 are currently available to stream on Netflix.