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One of the best things about human beings is that we can still find humor in the midst of a crisis. In fact, humor becomes even more important during tough times, since joy and laughter can help connect us and keep us calm.

Since our normal entertainment venues are a bit hampered at the moment, people are fishing in the collective archives and pulling out tidbits of timeless hilarity. One clip that’s currently making the rounds is a rap video from the “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” from 2014. Can you picture NBC’s buttoned-up news anchors Brian Williams and Lester Holt performing Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” together? (Or rapping anything at all?)

Prepare to be amazed by what you’re about to witness. Whoever was behind the editing of this brilliant piece deserves an Oscar. Seriously.

Enjoy:

Rapper’s Delight – Brian Williams

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And if you want a few more laughs, check out this interview Fallon did with Brian Williams after his rapping video went viral. Who’d have guessed Williams had such a dry wit?! (Seriously, how did I miss this the first time around? So funny.)

Brian Williams Addresses His Rapping — Part 1

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Brian Williams Addresses His Rapping — Part 2

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“Scooby Doo” and “Scream” actor Matthew Lillard shared a touching video on Twitter of his neighbors throwing a surprise parade for Coco, a girl who just underwent her final chemotherapy treatment.

“People may need some goodness right now,” the 50-year-old actor said in the tweet.

Even though the community was on lockdown for the coronavirus they still came out and supported Coco from their cars and in front of their homes.

And mission accomplished, Matthew Lillard. This is just what the Internet needed right now. Coco’s mom even chimed in, offering to help others going through similar situations with their families right now:

One of the biggest obstacles to fighting COVID-19 in just about every country is the lack of ventilators. Patients with severe cases suffer from inflammation and a build-up of fluid in the lungs. This makes breathing and oxygenating the blood nearly impossible without a ventilator.

As COVID-19 cases rise in Canada, the medical community fears the country’s largest province, Ontario, could run out of ventilators very soon.

“What our modeling is showing is that if we cannot keep these interventions in place … we’re going to run out of capacity really, really quickly — likely in the next two weeks,” Beate Sander, a scientist who has been modeling the pandemic’s impact on Ontario’s health-care system, told the CBC.

The province is working to come up with more but it still may not be enough.

“We’ve procured 300 more ventilators to add to the 210 we currently have in surplus,” Ontario health minister, Christine Elliott’s spokesperson, told the CBC. “We continue to work on procuring additional ventilators.”

If hospitals run short on ventilation equipment, they may be forced to make the dreadful decision between who dies and who is saved.

To get the most out of the ventilators at his hospital, Dr. Alain Gauthier, an anesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Ontario, rigged one of the ventilators so it could serve up to nine people.

The hack was shared online by a fellow physician, who called him an “evil genius.”

According to the CBC, the rigged ventilator will only work with patients that have similar lung capacities. Multiple hoses are attached to the machine so it is running several times its normal power.

“At one point we may not have other options,” Gauthier told CBC News. “‘The option could be well, we let people die or we give that a chance.”

via Alan Drummond

Gauthier came up with the idea after seeing a 2006 video on YouTube. He says the idea has been tried once before, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.

The hack was so impressive it even caught the attention of Elon Musk who tweeted, “Interesting thread.”

Engineers in Italy earned similar attention this week for hacking scuba gear and turning it into a ventilator mask. Italy is the country second hardest-hit by the virus and is having its own troubles with equipment shortages.

In just three hours, Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli, engineers at Isinnova, created a prototype for a 3-D printed valve that successfully converts the scuba gear into a ventilator mask.

The mask tested successfully in an Italian hospital so the engineers have made the 3-D valve plans available to everyone for free.

The coronavirus has been a terrible scourge on humanity, but there will be some positives that come from the pandemic. Tragic events like this one push people to improvise and innovate new solutions that may help humanity in the future.

via Reddit

The elderly have the most to worry about during the COVID-19 pandemic. If infected by the virus they have the highest mortality rate. So, obviously, they have a big reason to stay home and practice social distancing during the crisis.

Teenagers have a much lower risk of dying from the COVID-19, and in California, high school isn’t in session for weeks, if not months.

So Daniel Goldberg, a junior student-athlete at San Marcos High in Santa Barbara put two and two together and got his friends together to help the elderly.

Daniel created Zoomers to Boomers, a website where seniors in the Santa Barbara area can fill out a list online and have their groceries delivered the next day by one of his high school friends.

The site’s name is a generational play on words, the delivery people are all Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) and the recipients are mostly Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964).

via Zoomers to Boomers

“The first week off school I was just spending time with siblings, and I was trying to follow all the regulations of isolate at home, don’t go out and spread anything around,” Daniel told Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk.

“I felt I wasn’t helping when there was help that was needed,” he added.

Daniel was inspired to create the website because of his father, an ER doctor at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

“I saw my dad (Dr. Brian Goldberg) going into work at the ER every day and he was putting himself out on the front line,” Daniel said. “I was just sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. I was like: ‘There has to be something I can do to try help out in the community.’ I started thinking and brainstorming on how I can help.”

By Tuesday, Daniel had put together a staff of 13 high school kids to do the zooming. Many of them are fellow athletes at his school. The Zoomers must adhere to strict standards of sanitation and wear an N95 mask and gloves.

“All these people are people I’m comfortable asking, ‘Do you want to help?'” he said. “They’re friends from school and water polo, people I know.”

The great thing for seniors is that Zoomers to Boomers is free. The Zoomers don’t accept any payment for their orders and tips are donated to those in need in Santa Barbara county.

The project has been so successful it’s already spread to Denver, Colorado.

The site is simple to use. Customers click an “order here” tab to create a grocery list. Then drivers visit a local grocery store and fulfill the order. After the items have been purchased, the delivery person calls or texts the customer and tells them how much it cost and when it will be delivered.

Customers can pay through cash, check, or Venmo.

“They answer all the information we need and we send a driver out and we’ll have (the grocery) order to them by the next morning,” Daniel said. “For the non-tech savvy, they can send me an email. I can call a couple of people and make the delivery.”

Business is taking off quickly. On Tuesday, Daniel’s team fulfilled 50 orders, so he’s looking to hire more Zoomers.

“I’m going to try to grow the team a little more,” he said.

The war with COVID-19 has arrived on our soil, and those on the front lines are being sent into battle without enough armor or armaments.

We’ve spent weeks watching hard-hit nations struggle under overwhelming conditions—countries like Italy, which has more hospital beds and more doctors per capita than the U.S.—having to make heartbreaking decisions about which patients will get ventilators and which patients will die.

The picture of what happens when healthcare systems—even developed, well-managed systems—get hit with more critically ill patients than they have room or equipment for, is stark. And that reality has just begun to play out in the U.S.. Not enough personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep healthcare workers from contracting the virus they’re surrounded by in the hospital. Not enough ventilators to meet the swelling demand.

Heroic doctors and nurses on the front line are beginning to give us all a glimpse of what this battle looks like. ER doctor Colleen Smith in Elmhurst, Queens, shared with the New York Times what is happening inside her hospital, where 13 patients died of COVID-19 in one day. The hospital has had to place a refrigerated truck outside to hold the deceased bodies. She says their ER patient load has more than doubled in recent days, and those numbers are likely to increase.

“Leaders in various offices, from the president to the head of Health and Hospitals ,saying things like, ‘We’re going to be fine. Everything’s fine.’ And from our perspective, everything is not fine,” Dr. Smith told the Times. “I don’t have the support that I need, and even just the materials that I need, physically, to take care of my patients.”

Another doctor called what’s happening in the hospital “apocalyptic.” Hearing Dr. Smith detail the overwhelming anxiety and daunting reality at the very beginning of the expected surge in cases should make us all realize the seriousness of what we’re facing and understand why flattening the curve is so important.

For even the most casual fan of Disney theme parks, the news that Disneyland, Walt Disney World and every other Disney park and resort worldwide is shuttered during the coronavirus crisis has come as a shock.

Before coronavirus, it was easy to complain that prices were too high, crowds were too big, and the weather was too hot. But now that we know Disney parks are off limits, they beckon more than ever. The good news: Coronavirus doesn’t mean you can’t visit a Disney theme park. No, you won’t be able to go there in person. But even without a Magic Band or a FastPass, you can spend an hour or two inside your favorite Disney theme park (or even discover one you’ve always longed to visit).

That’s because super-committed Disney fans have long been creating “walkthrough” videos of Disney theme parks and posting them on YouTube. These aren’t short edits, either, but longform, high-quality videos that capture one moment in time – a moment you can relive whenever you want.

For Disney fans who have been less than pleased with some recent changes (for instance, the transition of Disney California Adventure’s Tower of Terror into the Guardians of the Galaxy ride), walkthrough videos even make it possible to see earlier, now-vanished incarnations of the parks that don’t exist anymore.

Photo by Brandi Ibrao on

So, head over to YouTube, put on a pair of mouse ears, grab some sunscreen (to help complete the effect) and take a virtual visit to Disney theme parks.

Here are some great places to start when it comes to taking a tour of the wide Disney world without leaving your home:

• Disneyland – The original and, by the measure of some enthusiasts, still the best. This walkthrough from 2013 showcases the park’s smaller, more intimate surroundings, though there are segments (like New Orleans Square at 15:00) that showcase the park’s extreme attention to detail beautifully – with almost no crowds. At about 16:40, you’ll start hearing some clicking. That’s the sound Walt Disney’s dedication to Disneyland being sent in Morse code.

YouTube

www.youtube.com

• Disney California Adventure – The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and A Bug’s Land live on in this video shot in 2016, during a Southern California winter’s morning (hence the low sun and long shadows). This super-steady walkthrough does make you wish you could crane your neck to look up, but is otherwise a great way to stroll through the park and hear the background sounds.

Disney California Adventure Tour Walkthrough All The Park, Disneyland

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• The Magic Kingdom – Once you get through the heavy holiday-season morning crowds on Main Street, Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is gloriously uncrowded in this 34-minute walk through the most popular theme park in the U.S.

Magic Kingdom 2016 FULL 4K Walkthrough | Holiday 2016 + Mickey’s Birthday | FL Attractions 360

www.youtube.com

• EPCOT – No Disney park is going to experience more changes than EPCOT, which is really like two theme parks (Future World and World Showcase) in one. All Disney theme parks take on a special feel at night, which is particularly true for EPCOT, and this video from 2013 captures that feel – and this enormous park – evocatively.

Epcot at Night 2013 – Future World, World Showcase, Illuminations – Walt Disney World

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• Disney’s Hollywood Studios – Captured just after the opening of Galaxy’s Edge but before the Chinese Theater had reopened with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, this video captures the Big Band sounds of the park and its distinctive flavor.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios 2019 (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Included), Orlando | Full Walkthrough Tour

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• Disney’s Animal Kingdom – While it skips the Oasis entry area of the park, this leisurely walkthrough of Disney’s meticulous nature park is as rich and relaxing as the park itself, taking time to explore its ever-changing foliage and the fine detail.

Long Relaxing Stroll at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 4K 60fps – No Narration – Walt Disney World

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That’s just the start. Enthusiastic Disney fans have also helped capture background music tracks from Disney theme parks around the world. For instance, want to spend the day inside but feel like you’re at EPCOT? There’s a full hour of the music that follows you throughout Future World here:

Epcot Innoventions Plaza Area Loop (Old)

www.youtube.com

You can even turn your own bedroom (or any room) into a Disney resort hotel room – a one-hour video of “WDW Today,” the information-and-music channel that plays in every resort room is here:

WDW Today Channel – January 2019 – New Music!! | Walt Disney World Resort TV

www.youtube.com

There are many more videos to be found – this is just a sampling. It’s never going to be a complete substitute for actually being there, but given that these videos come without crowds, humidity, high prices and heat, it’s possible that in some ways they’re even better than the real thing.

John Singh is a writer and entertainment-industry veteran who began his career as a newspaper journalist and has also worked at Disney, Lucasfilm Ltd., DreamWorks Animation and on a variety of films and TV series.

Dr. Usama Riaz is being hailed as a hero In Pakistan for courageously putting his life on the line to treat patients with COVID-19. Even though the 26-year-old doctor didn’t have adequate protective gear, he kept fighting for his patients until he eventually lost his life to the disease.

He’s a hero in Pakistan but the world should know his name.

Riaz was part of a ten-person team screening pilgrims who recently returned to Pakistan from Iraq and Iran. He later treated these patients at isolation centers in Gilit, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Last Friday, after treating his patients, Riaz went to bed but couldn’t get up in the morning. He was rushed to a military hospital for a CT scan but the equipment didn’t work. He was put on a ventilator and died two days later.

“It is with extreme sadness that the Gilgit-Baltistan health department confirms that Usama Riaz who played a key role in the war against coronavirus has passed away,” the Gilgit Baltistan government tweeted on Monday.

“Usama proved himself the real hero by sacrificing his life to save others,” Gilgit Baltistan Information Minister Shams Mir said. Riaz will be declared a national hero.

Its believed that Riaz contracted the coronavirus because he didn’t have access to proper protective equipment. Other doctors in Pakistan have also contracted the disease for the same reason.

Even though Riaz knew he was in danger of catching the virus, it didn’t stop him from working to save the lives of his patients.

via Sheromalik / Twitter

There are over 1,000 documented cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan and the number has tripled over the past week. Healthcare specialists believe the country may become a hotbed for the virus due to its underdeveloped healthcare system.

“We’re on a very low scale, in terms of infrastructure,” Dr Shamail Daud, a healthcare management specialist, said according to Al-Jazeera. “Healthcare is very disintegrated and not very high in terms of quality or dealing with high levels of critical care for patients, which is unfortunately an outcome of COVID-19.”

“Pakistani medical officials are calling on the government to provide more protective gear to doctors so they don’t have to suffer the same fate as Riaz.

“We request the government to immediately provide us personal protection equipment,” Dr. Asfandyar Khan, president of staff at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, told a news conference on Friday, according to Reuters.

“It is like suicide to treat patients without protection,” he added. “If infection spreads in hospitals believe me no person will be ready to touch any patient.”

On Friday, Lt. Gen. Muhammad Afzal, the chief of Pakistan’s national disaster management department, said the country has procured 12,500 pieces of personal protective equipment and it will be sent to hospitals.

However, the country also has a shortage of ventilators. In severe cases, COVID-19 patients suffer inflammation and fluid in the lungs which makes it difficult for them to breathe and to oxygenate their blood.

“We have 1,700 ventilators in public hospitals and another 600 in the private sector,” said Afzal, who said the country has put in an order for 800 more.

Riaz is an incredible example of the lengths that healthcare workers will go to help their patients in a crisis. He gave everything to help his patients, it’s a shame that his government didn’t take preventative measures to help care for him.

Are people in your community being vigilant about the social distance measures we’re being asked to practice?

If you just peer out your windows or walk around your neighborhood, it’s hard to get an accurate gauge. Perhaps that close group of people you see is a family who lives together getting some fresh air, or maybe they’re friends rebelliously gathering in public. The two guys you saw smoking off the same joint and then shaking hands with a random person on the street (true story) could be indicators of widespread ignorance, or they may just be a few fluke fools.

Unfortunately, it will be weeks before we can determine by infection numbers how well our social distancing measures have worked. But in the meantime, we have data that can give us an idea of how well people are following the directives to stay home and away from other people as much as possible.

Unacast is a company that uses smartphone GPS and mapping tools to track human activity for various data usage. (The founders originally wanted to find out where people went to concerts so they could create a better user experience for their music-streaming service in Norway.) And thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones with GPS and no one reading the fine print on where that information goes, they’ve created a tool to track whether or not people are socially distancing the way they should be.

To simplify the data, they’ve created an interactive map that’s updated daily called the Covid-19 Social Distancing Scoreboard. According to how people’s movement changes, they give each state and county a letter grade to let people know how social distance measures are being followed.

The county-specific information is helpful, especially in large states. My state gets a nice solid B, for example, but my county gets a big old F. Lovely.

Unacast.com

One thing that keeps coming up in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic is the need for data. Who has the virus? Where are they located? How long have they been contagious? Who have they been in contact with?

Without data, we are flying blind. And though social distancing is just one piece of the puzzle, having a data-driven picture of where people are practicing it and where people aren’t can help us know where we need to get the word out and perhaps even where to look for potential hot spots in the near future.

Click here to access the interactive map and see how social distancing is going in your community.

As the U.S. slogs through the second week of widespread social distancing, many of us are feeling the impact of cabin fever and near-constant family togetherness. For many families, the past 10 days have felt like a combo of “Yay, more quality family time!” and “OMG, more social distance in this house, please.”

We’re also all looking for bright lights of joy in the midst of all the pandemic uneasiness and uncertainty and the Starkey family in Denver, Colorado has provided some of that joy this week.

Chris Starkey posted a video to Facebook on Monday of himself and his daughter Brooklyn doing a dance-off to Flo Rida’s “Low”—and it’s unexpectedly awesome. Starkey wrote, “My daughter challenged me to a dance off and said I don’t have it anymore. See that closet in the back she is still crying in it!!!” So much silly shade thrown around in this family, it’s delightful.

When you see their fun banter and Starkey’s middle-aged-man moves, you’ll see why the video has been shared more than 280,000 times in two days. Starkey wrote in a comment that the reaction has brought tears to his eyes and encourages everyone to “Give back to your community” right now. He also says another video will be coming on Monday.

Excellent. We need this kind of levity right now more than ever.

One of the biggest issues in treating those affected by COVID-19 is a lack of medical equipment. Italy, the country second hardest-hit by the pandemic, has faced shortages in equipment and hospital beds.

This puts doctors in the terrible position of having to decide who gets treatment and who does not.

One of the most important tools in the fight against COVID-19 are ventilators.

“A ventilator is a fairly fancy piece of technological equipment which is designed to breathe for somebody who is unable to breathe effectively on their own,” David Hill, a pulmonologist who sits on the board of the American Lung Association, said according to PBS.

In severe cases of COVID-19, a patient’s lungs become inflamed and filled with fluid which makes it difficult for them to breathe and oxygenate their blood.

A ventilator could mean the difference between life and death.

Due to the shortage of ventilator masks in northern Italy, a doctor reached out to Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli, engineers at Isinnova, a 3-D printing company, with the idea of making masks out of scuba equipment.

In just three hours, the engineers created a prototype for a 3-D printed valve that successfully converts the scuba gear into a ventilator mask.

“We had never made valves before, but we wanted to help,” they said according to The Independent.

The engineers then reached out to French sporting goods retailer Decathlon to see if they could use the Subea Easybreath snorkeling mask for the project. The company was “immediately willing to cooperate.”

The first fully-working prototype was tested at the Chiari Hospital and proven to be effective. After the successful test, the engineers printed 100 more valves.

The engineers quickly patented the valve, but then made the 3-D printing files free so anyone with a printer can produce them during the crisis. “We clarify that our initiative is totally non-profit, we will not obtain any royalties on the idea of the link, nor on the sales of Decathlon masks,” the engineers said.

The valves cost about a dollar to make according to The Independent.

via Cristian Fracassi / YouTube

While the engineers are proud of their success in creating the ventilator masks, they stress they are just a stop-gap solution.

“We are reiterating that the idea is designed for healthcare facilities and wants to help in realization of an emergency mask in the case of a full-blown difficult situation, where is not possible to in find official healthcare supplies,” the engineers said.

Neither the mask nor the link are certified and their use is subject to a situation of mandatory need,” they continued. “Usage by the patient is subjected to the acceptance of use of an uncertified biomedical device, by providing a signed declaration.”

The engineers at Isinnova are a fantastic example of the powerful ways that out-of-the-box thinking combined with partnerships between healthcare and outside industries can help us get through the pandemic.