The NBA is shut down, but that doesn’t mean Steph Curry is taking a rest.

Thursday, the Golden State Warriors star hosted an interview with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease director Anthony Fauci on Instagram Live that at one point had more than 50,000 viewers.

According to USA Today, the livestream attracted politicians, celebrities and athletes including former President Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Common and Mr Curry’s former teammate Andre Iguodala and Leandro Barbosa.

Mr Curry and Mr Fauci discussed the pandemic and issues surrounding group gatherings – like when sporting events might resume - and held a question and answer session.

Mr Fauci answered questions from a small office and sat underneath a tiny plastic basketball hoop.

Mr Curry asked the doctor when people might be able to return to sporting events and what metrics they’re using to determine what constitutes a safe environment for large gatherings.

“What you need is you need to see the trajectory of the curve start to come down. We’ve seen that in China, they went up and down, they’re starting to get back to some normal life,” Mr Fauci said. “So a direct answer to your question, we can start thinking about getting back to some degree of normality when the country as a whole has turned that corner and start coming down. Then you can pinpoint cases much more easily than getting overwhelmed by cases, which is what’s going on in New York City.”

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Mr Curry said he hosted the interview in hopes that younger people would watch and learn about the pandemic.

Since cases began appearing in the US, reports that young people are not as resistant to the virus as previously believed have begun circulating, a fact Mr Fauci discussed during the interview.

“What we’re starting to see is people who are younger, young, healthy, vigorous, who don’t have any underlying conditions, who are getting seriously ill. It’s still a very, very small minority, but it doesn’t mean that young people like yourself should say ‘I’m completely exempt from any risk of getting seriously ill”,” Mr Fauci said.

The doctor went on to explain that the risk is why young people also need to take social distancing seriously.

“You can become the vector, or the carrier of infection where you get infected, you feel well, and then you inadvertently and innocently pass it onto your grandfather or your grandmother or your uncle who’s on chemotherapy for cancer,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to be careful of.”

Mr Curry encouraged those watching to take the information and pass it along to their friends and family.