Grey's Anatomy boss was initially reluctant to tackle a coronavirus storyline -- until she was told "it’s the biggest medical story of our lifetimes"

Variety

When Krista Vernoff met with her writers via Zoom, she remembers telling them: “I think that people have fatigue of COVID, and I think they turn to our show for relief." So she challenged them to change her mind. “Who wants to be brave and convince me that I’m wrong?” she said. Co-executive producer Lynne E. Litt went first, Vernoff recalled, and said, “’I think it’s the biggest medical story of our lifetimes.'" And then Litt pitched a story. Vernoff said the doctors on her writing staff -- including Naser Alazari, who has been working on the frontlines of the pandemic -- also convinced her coronavirus was an important topic for the show. Vernoff recalled Alazari telling her, “This is the biggest medical story of our lifetime, and it is changing medicine permanently. And we have to tell this story.'" Meanwhile, Vernoff of filming Grey's Anatomy amid a pandemic: “Everyone was willing to scale the mountain,” Vernoff said. “I keep saying to people, ‘No, no really, we’ve actually reinvented the wheel. We are changing everything everyone has ever understood about how you make television.’ ...Everything is changing. And I’m proud of what we’re doing.”