Fitness trainer Joe Wicks says he plans to donate $100,000 raised from his YouTube exercise videos to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) staff on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.
The so-called “Body Coach,” who has become the world’s PE teacher by helping children stay active during the coronavirus lockdown, said the reception had been “unprecedented.”
Appearing on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” program Wednesday via video link, he told hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid that the PE classes have raised the sum through advertising revenue.
“In the past week alone on the past seven videos, the AdSense is almost at $100,000,” he said. “That’s incredible.”
Wicks’ workout sessions, live-streamed from his London home every weekday morning at 9 a.m. local time, have garnered millions of views from families across the globe.
During the interview, the father of two said that “every penny of every workout that we do from this school stuff and from now and forever on that channel… all of that money is going to the NHS in the UK.”
“The more we do it, the more we raise,” he added. “It’s amazing, I’m so proud of that.”
As of Tuesday evening, Britain had more than 29,000 Covid-19 cases, with 2,352 deaths, according to figures from the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care.
This week, the doors of the biggest intensive care unit in the country will open in a bid to help alleviate pressure on the health service during the global crisis.
NHS Nightingale, the field hospital converted from the Excel Centre in East London, is expected to treat up to 4,000 patients diagnosed with coronavirus.