The world is currently concerned with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. While panic and worry has taken over most of the regions, a few people are still busy cracking jokes on the pandemic. One of them was NBA star Rudy Gobert, who mocked the coronavirus outbreak in a press conference on Monday.

However, the joke did not turn out well as the Utah Jazz player ended up testing positive on Wednesday. Soon after the news broke, NBA has suspended the season for an infinite period.

NBA To Suspend Season Following Tonight's Games pic.twitter.com/2PTx2fkLlW — NBA (@NBA) March 12, 2020

After the press conference on Monday, Rudy got up and jokingly touched all of the microphones and recording devices placed in front of him.

This is the video of Rudy Gobert touching all the microphones and potentially infecting innocent people with Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/hqae652PLX — Abdul Memon (@abdulamemon) March 12, 2020

The team was set to play against Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday. However, the game was called off minutes before the match, and the arena has been sanitized since then. The players and staff were sent to their respective lockers, with both the teams under quarantine.

Netizens couldn’t keep calm after the news broke out, holding Rudy responsible for possibly spreading the disease to others. A user wrote, “Guess he thought that was cute....it wasn’t!!” while other mentioned, “Even if he didn’t know he had it like why? Bet he thought he did some funny too weirdo”.

Even if he didn’t know he had it like why? bet he thought he did some funny too weirdo — Maxx🍃 (@maxxelias97) March 12, 2020

What if Rudy just infected himself because one of the audio techs was infected and his hands touched already-infected microphones? — Who needs a handle (@JoeYossarian) March 12, 2020

Yeah and he knew about it and purposefully did this. GTFOH — Brad (@BMN112) March 12, 2020

Treating it as a Joke, probably to a couple hundred people easy by NOW. Its all in the TIME and Numbers. #47DaysAgo#StayTheFuckHome — acuamanny (@acuamanny) March 12, 2020

Yes its not about him, he is a 20 year old in peak physical condition he will be fine. It's about the 50 year old who had to take down the set up afterwards and pack it away and then set it up again for the next game. — Hatch (@hatch_nh) March 12, 2020

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared on Wednesday that Coronavirus to be known as pandemic, spread across 114 countries.