Sideswipe: March 22: The Great Coronavirus

A reader writes: "My kids found this spooky reference in Asterix and The Chariot Race."

Self-isolating stars

While our very own Sam Neill hit the right note posting about his self-isolation with a video of his freshly laundered collection of sneakers, another group of celebrities, singing John Lennon's Imagine on Instagram, did not. Usually likeable stars like Will Ferrell and Natalie Portman with unkempt hair and makeup-less faces, singing badly about "no possessions" was excruciatingly tone deaf. Meanwhile, Jared Leto just returned from a silent 12-day meditation retreat to find the world ablaze. Reading nothing but bad news and being hyper-aware of potential symptoms is going to lead to paranoia, and former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher admitted that the virus was getting inside his head. Repeatedly believing himself to be suffering from fever, Gallagher eventually came to the conclusion that his house was "just hot".

Gavin Sheehan reckons his house will be way easier to find now.

Pandemic thoughts

1. "OMG I love my new snake skin gloves, oh wait that's just my new hand skin washing them 17,000 times a day," tweets Queer Eye's Jonathan Van Ness.

2. A baby boom is anticipated as a result of the lockdowns. They'll be known as the Coronials until 2033 when they start to turn 13. From then on they'll be referred to as the Quaranteens.

3. "Pro-tip for couples suddenly working from home together: Get yourselves an imaginary co-worker to blame things on. In our apartment, Cheryl keeps leaving her dirty water cups all over the place and we really don't know what to do about her," tweets Molly Tolsky.

4. Top Tip For Self-Isolation from a Boris Johnson parody account: "When several people are living in the same house, try to stay apart as much as possible by spreading yourselves between the lounge, dining room, great hall, drawing room, library, billiard room, etc."

5. Make washing your hands more exciting by pretending they are two giant octopuses wrestling each other to the death (while you sing Happy Birthday to them)," tweets Moose Allain.

6. "You realise how isolated you have been when a world pandemic happens and you need to make almost zero changes to your lifestyle," tweets Brunolemos.

7. A supermarket in Denmark has found the solution to the global problem of hoarding hand sanitiser. Rotunden supermarket in Denmark is now selling one bottle of sanitiser for 40 DKK ($6) while two bottles cost 1000 DKK ($158).