Plushies & Coronavirus

Need a fun, easy crafts project to do at home while you're self-isolating from COVID-19?

Look no further! On the first week of my sabbati-cation, I found a quick & easy way to design 3D plushies... with Play-Doh & a paper towel‽

🐥 Make Plushie Patterns with Play-Doh & Paper Towels 🐥
(4 min read + downloadable pattern)

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Another fun thing to do while self-isolating: going into a room with good sound insulation – like my pantry, which is stocked with 5 jars of rice – and practicing your voice feminization.

Here's 4 more femme voice tests! A 2x2 experiment, Pitch (medium vs high) and Throat Closure (off vs on). Please let me know which voice you feel sounds the least terrible, and for that voice, what I should work on?

🗣 March 12th – 2x2 Femme Voice Test 🗣 (1 min listen)

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Ok, but seriously.

Two days ago, a friend told me they weren't worried about COVID-19, coz the media cried wolf before over Zika and Mad Cow. This frustrated me, because I said the same thing to another friend just two weeks ago.

I believed most news & social media is untrustworthy. I still believe that. The medium favors messages that make you hit Share in a state of panic. WHO even called what's happening on the internet an "infodemic", which is why they've invested so much in a social media strategy – and I applaud them!

Since my "job" is science communication, I want to applaud 3 more highlights of great COVID-19 sci-comm, amidst this infodemic:

• 3Blue1Brown explains the paradox of exponential growth: Why a disease's "compounding" means 1) it's way more threatening that it seems, and yet... 2) if everyone reduces their personal chance of infection by – say – just 10%, that doesn't reduce the total death count by just 10%, but by a factor of a thousand.
• Rosamund Pearce explains "flattening the curve": Another paradox. We can save more lives even if the same total number of people get infected, simply by slowingdown the rate of infection.
• Our World In Data is collecting all the current confirmed data on COVID-19, which you can easily explore via interactive diagrams. All data is free & open-access. Heck yeah

(Meanwhile, mainstream news sites are burying "don't wear face masks if you're healthy" in the text, under 100s of photos of people wearing face masks.)

To be honest, I only changed my mind about COVID-19 after seeing level-headed statisticians I trust change their minds, too. These are the kind of people who say the news cries wolf over terrorism and gun violence; alcohol alone kills more Americans per month than 9/11 and the top 10 mass shootings combined. (Gotta say, not the best way to make statisticians not look like cold bastards.)

But now even these cold bastards are saying, COVID-19 is it. This is the wolf. Or at least, a threat worth taking seriously and taking worldwide action now.

The exponential nature of an epidemic means 1% actions we do or don't take today, makes a 1000% difference later. So:

• Wash your hands.
• Don't touch your face with unwashed hands.
• Wash your hands.
• Get your info directly from WHO, your local public health agency, or curated through Wikipedia. They definitely aren't 100% accurate, but they're better than mainstream news, social media, or random internet people like... me, honestly.
• Don't panic.
• Turn your panic's energy into 🌟determination🌟 
• Here's WHO's recommendations for coping with stress. Might I add that sewing plushies is an excellent stress-reliever?
• Cover your face when sneezing or coughing.
• Minimize crowds. Do social distancing. I am fighting every Canadian instinct in my body to not hug friends.
• Surgeons wear face masks to stop their germs spreading to the patient, not vice versa. Don't wear a face mask unless you are sick, or likely to become sick (i.e. caring for an infected person, or in a high-risk city)
• "But what's the harm of stocking up on masks?" It reduces the supply available to the infected & their healthcare providers. Also, if you keep moving your face mask to eat or drink, you'll touch your face more.
• Ignore TV news reporting "# new cases" or whatever. The number that matters is the exponential growth rate. (how long it takes for # cases to double)
• Ignore TV news in general, really.
• Stay at home if you have mild flu-like symptoms. If you have a fever & dry cough, call a hospital.
• The most at-risk are the elderly. Video-call your grandma.
• Help your loved ones follow these (or WHO's) guidelines. Especially "don't panic".
• Don't panic.
• Yes, it's officially a pandemic. But so was 2009's H1N1. Scientists & health organizations are applying lessons from the past, aggressive containment measures are working, and what you personally need to do is simple and entirely in your control, like remembering to: 
• Wash. Your. Hands.

And now, de-stress. Here's a Peep in a cup:

Stay safe, y'all. And let me know what you think of my 2x2 femme voice test, plus any fun plushie designs you want to make!

💖,
~ Nicky