Staff at a Tokyo aquarium have appealed to the general public to help them keep their garden eels accustomed to humans by video-calling the marine creatures during the current Covid-19 pandemic, when the venue is closed.

The coronavirus pandemic has already affected the way we live, but it’s apparently taking a toll on aquarium eels as well, particularly the ones at the Sumida Aquarium, in Tokyo, which have reportedly started to forget what humans look like after the place closed down in March. Aquarium staff took to social media to report that their once sociable garden eels have started hiding in the sand when any of the few keepers walk by their tank, which suggests that they are starting to forget what humans look like.

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Last weekend, as most parts of the world enforced extreme social distancing measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, a crowd of thousands gathered in the Dominican city of Puerto Plata to listen to a popular “pilgrim” prophesize that God will rid the country and the whole world of this pandemic.

In flagrant breach of the social distancing measures imposed by the Dominican Government, a crowd of thousands of people accompanied pilgrim Mildomio Adames to a local square where the self-proclaimed holy man revealed that he had had a divine revelation. Adames told the excited crowd that he had to dump a large wooden crucifix into the sea to make God end the Covid-19 pandemic.

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A 24-year-old Indian man was recently hospitalized after he allegedly cut off his tongue as an offering to the Hindu goddess Kali Mata, to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

From putting quarantine offenders in haunted houses to people locking spouses in the bathroom, we’ve seen people do some pretty extreme things to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Vivek Sharma, a young stone sculptor working in Suigam, India’s Gujarat state, takes the cake. Frustrated about not being able to return to his home town in Madhya Pradesh, because of nationwide lockdowns, Sharma reportedly chopped off his own tongue at a temple, as an offering to Hindu goddess Kali Mata, to stop the spread of the virus. So far his sacrifice has proven to be in vain…

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Finding any sort of protective face mask is a challenge these days, as demand has gone through the roof, but if you’re looking for something special and have money to burn, you can try a mask made out of alligator or snake skin.

All American Gator, a Florida-based company specializing in products made out of alligator and snake skin has started selling special Covid-19 face masks made from reptile skin. The skin itself doesn’t really provide any protection against the novel coronavirus, but it’s a fashion statement, and the mask itself is designed to make the insertion and removal of filters and linings as easy as possible.

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Fed up with people constantly neglecting self-isolation and quarantine rules, a local politician on Indonesia’s Java Island decided to lock rule breakers in a haunted house to set an example for others.

Kusdinar Untung Yuni Sukowati, the head of Sragen regency came up with the idea of taping into the locals’ fear of ghosts as a way to deal with an influx of newcomers in the area. Because of lockdowns in the capital Jakarta and other major cities, Sragen has started seeing quite a lot of people coming in, many of whom completely disregard the rule to self-isolate themselves for 14 days, in case they are infected with the novel coronavirus. To make sure people started respecting the rules, Kusdinar started putting offenders in abandoned houses locals believe are haunted.

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Chinese media recently reported the case of two doctors who got infected with the novel coronavirus while treating patients and suffered a drastic change in skin pigmentation, going from white to dark brown.

Dr. Yi Fan and Dr. Hu Weifeng, both 42, became infected with the coronavirus in January, while treating patients at the Wuhan Central Hospital. They were colleagues of Dr. Li Wenliang, the late whistle-blower who first sounded the alarm about the dangerous new virus and was originally reprimanded by the Chinese Government. They both would have shared his tragic fate too, if not for the valiant efforts of their fellow doctors to keep them alive. The two doctors spent more than a month on life-support and only regained consciousness this month, when they also learned that their appearances had changed drastically…

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As countries around the world struggle to come up with ways of keeping people from going outside and slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus, Indonesian settlements are trying an unconventional solution – volunteer ghosts.

In Kepuh village, Central Java, people brave enough to venture outside their homes at night risk coming face to face with ‘pocong’ or shrouded ghosts, legendary figures believed to be represent the souls of dead people trapped in their funeral shrouds. The pocong monitor guests coming into the village and make sure that residents stay indoors as much as possible, to prevent them from spreading the potentially deadly coronavirus. Quite unusual for ghosts known as scary and creepy in Indonesian folklore, but then again, these aren’t your usual pocong.

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Summer at the beach doesn’t sound that enticing this year due to the threat of Covid-19 and social distancing measures, but one Italian company has conceptualized a solution and it involves Plexiglas beach cubicles.

Having to pass on the summer vacation season entirely would be catastrophic for Italy’s massive tourism sector, but  Modena-based Nuova Neon recently unveiled a type of transparent Plexiglas cubicles that could be set up on beaches to ensure that people can enjoy some time in the sun while still maintaining a safe distance from each other. These large  transparent boxes are designed to delimit the bathers’ spaces; they surround individual groups of people thus avoiding interactions with other vacationers.

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A family of five from Russia’s Sverdlovsk region took social distancing recommendations to the extreme by self-isolating in a forest several kilometers away from the nearest human settlement.

On April 6th, Sverdlovsk police received a phone call from a woman in the village of Krasnogvardeisky who claimed that her brother had taken his wife and three children ages four, eight and ten years old into a nearby forest to escape the threat of coronavirus infection. The family had left the village a day before and hand’t been in touch since, so the woman was worried about their well-being, especially the young children. After organizing a search-party, police found the family living in the indicated forest, under the open sky.

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A luckless Chinese man who reportedly spent almost two months in his home after being quarantined three times in a row became a trending topic on Chinese social media this week.

Mr Xiong, from the city of Jining, in East China’s Shandong Province, spent almost the whole month of February and half of March cooped up in his home in an unlucky triple quarantine that the media hilariously dubbed “buy one, get two free”. The first time Xiong was confined to his apartment was when Jining went into lockdown on February 8th, two days after returning from the Philippines. He was forbidden from leaving his home for 14 days, which was tough, but not as tough as spending 50 days inside…

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The Ukrainian city of Dnipro has so far registered only 13 coronavirus infections and no fatalities attributed to Covid-19, but the local authorities have already dug over 600 fresh graves, just to be sure.

Unwilling to risk the same kind of insubordination from his constituents, the mayor of Dnipro, a city of almost one million people, has gone to extreme lengths to make sure locals understand the dangers of ignoring social distancing measures. Last week, Mayor Borys Filatov wrote on Facebook that local authorities were preparing for the worst, adding that over 600 new graves have already been dug in in preparation for anticipated deaths.

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Le Le, a British Shorthair cat from Wuhan, China, has become a symbol of resistance during the current pandemic, showing us human that if she could survive by herself in a locked apartment for 40 days, then we can handle a bit of social distancing and isolation too.

This story of feline endurance and survival began in January of 2020, when the Covid-19 crisis in Wuhan was still in its infancy. One by one, Le Le’s human family had to be hospitalized after becoming infected with the coronavirus, and before the Chinese New Year (January 25) rolled up, the heavily pregnant cat had been left by herself. Her owners had decided not to hire someone look after her, or even check in on her from time to time, because they didn’t known whether their home was contaminated with the virus or not. So they just opened a bag of cat food and hoped for thee best.

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Dr.Vorobev, a “medical jewelry” company based in Kostroma, Russia, has been getting a lot of attention for the sterling silver coronavirus-shaped pendants it has been selling since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sold online for 1,000 rubles ($13), the coronavirus pendant created by Dr. Vorobev has become a very controversial piece of jewelry on Russian social media. While some people buy it and post photos of themselves wearing it on their Instagram and VK accounts, other criticize the company for trying to make money off a global health crisis that has already killed tens of thousands around the world.  Pavel Vorobyov, the founder of Dr. Vorobev, insists that the pendant is a gesture of support for health professionals, not a way to exploit the current crisis.

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Although health experts around the world strongly advise people to isolate themselves in order to minimize the chances of getting infected with the novel coronavirus, one German mayor did just the opposite, deliberately contacting the virus so he could then be immune to it.

Berlin District Mayor Stephan von Dassel sparked controversy in German last week after admitting to consciously contacting the novel coronavirus from his partner in order to self-immunize and be able to work while others were off sick. Even though his decision went against the general consensus of public health experts, most of whom strongly recommend social-distancing to avoid catching the virus, von Dassel claims that he saw his deliberate infection as a “contribution” toward the long-term goal of flattening the curve of the infection. He did admit that he underestimated the virus, though.

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A young Chinese dad spent a month converting a cat carrier backpack into a safety pod for his baby. His invention allegedly protects the child from infection and pumps purified air into the pod with an electronic fan system.

30-year-old Cao Junjie, a tech-savvy father from Shanghai, China, wanted something that would allow him and his wife, Fang, to take their two-month old son on walks without worrying that he might get infected with the novel coronavirus. Even though babies and young people in general usually experience mild symptoms, they didn’t want to take a chance, so Junjie came up with a solution inspired by Hideo Kojima’s latest video game (Death Stranding), a carrier pod completely isolated form the outside.

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