'Grey's Anatomy' Season 17 will tackle coronavirus pandemic story

The coronavirus pandemic has dominated our lives this year, so it only stands to reason that the topic will be addressed on the small screen too.

Now, it's been revealed that season 17 of Gey's Anatomy will tackle the story of the pandemic.

"We're going to address this pandemic for sure," said executive producer Krista Vernoff of season 17. "There's no way to be a long-running medical show and not do the medical story of our lifetimes."

Cast your mind back to the season 16 finale trailer from May: 

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The exciting news was broken on the Quaranstreaming: Comfort TV That Keeps Us Going panel, hosted by the Television Academy on Emmys.com today.

To ensure that the storyline is as accurate as possible, the exec producer, who participated in the panel along with Grey's stars Chandra Wilson (Dr. Miranda Bailey) and Kevin McKidd (Dr. Owen Hunt), said that the show's writers are meeting with doctors tackling the pandemic to find out more about their experiences on the front line.

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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," Krista Vernoff explained.

"The doctors come in and we're the first people they're talking to about these types of experiences they're having. They are literally shaking and trying not to cry, they're pale, and they’re talking about it 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."

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Vernoff said that it's been "really painful" to hear about the suffering of healthcare workers and patients as a result of the pandemic.

"I feel like our show has an opportunity and a responsibility to tell some of those stories," she said.

While filming on season 17 hasn't began yet because of the coronavirus pandemic, the show's writers are hard at work creating storylines that will bring it to life.

"Our conversations have been constantly about how do we keep alive humor and romance while we tell these really painful stories," she teased.