Friday, May 9, 2025

Spring 2020

7 ways to feed your creative need while staying locked indoors

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By Lizzie Stricklin and Skylar Thoma

Creativity is blooming on the internet as people around the world are being inspired to take up artistic challenges from wherever they find themselves in lockdown.

An explosion of online content, from silly social media challenges, to museums and universities sharing their resources, is giving people a way to stay sane during these trying times. Here are just seven ways the artistic and creative world has continued to shine during these turbulent times.

Recreating the Classics

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles took to Twitter this month to encourage fans of visual art to recreate their favourite paintings using only three items found around the house. Although some of the participating photos used more than three items, they all have produced creative takes on paintings from Jan van Eyck to Pablo Picasso. Here are some of our favourite DIY creations:

https://twitter.com/chuubasti/status/1246142344048439296

Exploring Museums from the Couch

The Vatican Museums now offer virtual tours of their exhibits, including one of Raphael’s Rooms.

Although many museums have been forced to close their doors for the foreseeable future, museums from around the world have moved some of their exhibits online in partnership with Google Arts & Culture. Visitors can view the collections as an online gallery, and, if the museum has the technology, take a virtual reality tour of the museum. Over 2,000 museum collections from six continents have added their exhibits so far.

Taking a Seat – Or Creating One

On March 18, Spanish designer Max Enrich started an Instagram challenge encouraging followers to craft little #isolationchairs out of miscellaneous household items. In the past three weeks, this challenge has taken off, with posts displaying hundreds of pint-sized creations made from items ranging from matches to breakfast sandwiches circulating the internet. Here are some of our favourites:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-g5Llgiwem/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Y971PDi3z/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KHuNbgEwN/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Bringing the Theatre to the Living Room

The lights may have been dimmed, but the show must go on! Broadway and West End theatres, as well as some regional theatres, have released pro-shots of plays and musicals that theatre fans around the world can watch for free or with a small donation. Andrew Lloyd Weber himself has started a YouTube channel dubbed The Shows Must Go On, through which a different Weber musical recording will premiere every Friday.

The National Theatre in London will be releasing a recording of a play every week, and Broadway stars have held virtual play readings. Regional theatres like TheatreWorks Silicon Valley have also joined the online stage by holding a “virtual opening night” for its musical production of Pride & Prejudice, which included interviews with cast members and was hosted by Broadway star Beth Leavel.

Worldwide Orchestras

Choirs and orchestras are organizing their performances online, often with individual members recording themselves and compiling their videos into a final product. Some conductors are hosting live sessions over YouTube and other streaming platforms. Here are some impressive performances done without any of the performers in the same room:

Slovenian acapella group Perpetuum Jazzile performs an original piece using recordings from each singer.
The Symphonic Orchestra of Castille and Leon performs Ode to Joy using recordings of each musician.
The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra shared a Proudly South African performance of the National Anthem.

Sharing Their Craft

For aspiring artists who have no idea how to begin, there are an abundance of online classes available for all manner of things. The online website Class Central has compiled over 450 free online classes from the eight Ivy League universities, including courses in music, photography, and architecture. Scores of artists are also using YouTube to host online classes of their own on every topic imaginable: drawing, knitting, painting, playing instruments, and more.

Mo Willems, artist-in-residence at the Kennedy Centre, is hosting periodic doodle sessions on YouTube.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-make-face-mask-coronavirus.html
For those who are more industrially minded, the New York Times has created a guide for how to make your own protective face masks to wear if you need to venture out in public.

Going Out in Style

As more people commit themselves to social isolation and self-quarantine, sometimes the only time they leave the house is to take out the trash. Members of the Australian Facebook group “Bin isolation outing” (https://www.facebook.com/groups/306002627033697/) found a creative way to make taking out the trash fun by donning costumes for the daily chore.

The Australian Facebook Bin isolation dress-up challenge is being taken up by people around the world, including this woman in Croydon, UK, who put on her finery to take out the trash.

The fun has now spread around the world, with participants from Scotland and the United States putting their own spin on the silly costumes.

Western Cape government calls for medical volunteers to help fight Covid-19

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By Ainsley Ash 

MAIN IMAGE: A graphic issued by the Western Cape government showing the spread of Covid-19 cases in the province.

The Western Cape Government has issued an appeal for medical volunteers to sign up to help fight the spread of COVID-19 as it gears up for a rise in case numbers in coming weeks. 

On Friday the government issued a statement explaining that the pre-existing burden of disease among the province’s population combined with the COVID-19 pandemic were increasing pressure on medical facilities. It called on doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and emergency medical service personnel who were not already employed by the Department of Health to sign up online to offer their services.

The request came as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the province rose to 418, with 25 people in hospitals, seven of them receiving intensive care. 

https://twitter.com/WesternCapeGov/status/1246046870956359680?s=20

On Thursday, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde and health officials took to Facebook for a live presentation to discuss the province’s response to COVID-19.

“We have got enough hospital beds, enough ICU beds and enough quarantine facilities right now,” Winde said. “But we’ve got to be preparing for what the impact is going to be in a week, two weeks, and two months’ time?”

While the province’s numbers are currently low, Western Cape Head of Health Dr Keith Cloete said that the numbers of locally transmitted cases, hospitalisations, and ICU patients was expected to continue to increase. 

Dr Keith Cloete explains challenges of preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the province. (Ainsley Ash)

Cape Town has been the epicenter of the spread of local transmissions with 333 of the 418 reported cases residing in the Cape Town metropolitan area. Before the government’s request for volunteers, over 100 students at the University of Cape Town had already begun volunteering to run a local COVID-19 hotline.

Members of the UCT Surgical Society who opted to volunteer have been classified as emergency medical personnel, giving them the necessary permissions to travel to and from the Tygerberg Hospital Disaster Management Centre where the hotline is located.

This week, the national Health Department will begin to conduct mass community screenings and testing to track and prevent the spread of local transmissions. According to Cloete, community health workers and NGOS will carry out these preventative efforts, beginning with vulnerable communities in the Cape Town Metro.

Coronavirus cases pass one million, but virus-free pockets remain

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By Lizzie Stricklin

MAIN PHOTO: Samoa is one of the few nations that has not reported any coronavirus cases. SOURCE: Simon Steinberger, Pixabay

Global COVID-19 cases have exceeded one million, global news outlets reported yesterday.

According to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at John Hopkins University, cases have been confirmed in more than 180 countries and territories, with the United States containing the most confirmed cases at 243,453 and Italy following with 115,242 confirmed cases. There have been over 50,000 confirmed global deaths due to COVID-19, according to the John Hopkins data.

Only 18 countries have not yet confirmed any cases of the virus: Comoros, Kiribati, Lesotho, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Korea, Palau, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Yemen.

The majority of these countries are small Pacific island nations, including Kiribati and Nauru. One similarity is that none of the reportedly virus-free nations are tourist hotspots, with seven of the world’s ten least-visited places on the list.

Despite having no confirmed cases, these nations all took precautions to limit internal spread of the virus. Lesotho has been under lockdown since March 13, when it was the first African nation to close its borders. South Sudan, Samoa and Tonga have also been under lockdown since late March. Island nations like São Tomé and Príncipe, Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu have declared states of emergency and limited or suspended international travel.

However, some experts believe that the lack of confirmed cases in some of these countries may be because of lack of sufficient reporting. Reuters reported that North Korea has requested foreign aid and supplies like masks and test machines to help fight the virus, despite denying any cases. Various other sources have alleged varying numbers of cases and casualties in North Korea, but the country has not officially reported any COVID-19 cases.

Reportage of the extent of the virus is constrained in countries like Turkmenistan as well, where zero cases have been reported but the word “coronavirus” has been removed from official informational brochures, according to Reporters Without Borders.

According to coverage by the BBC, health experts like Peter MacPherson of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Andy Tatem of University of Southampton predict COVID-19 will eventually infect every country, but suggest that small Pacific island nations may hold out the longest due to their natural isolation.

Police face allegations of murder, abuse as SAPS enforces lockdown

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By Renny Simone

MAIN PHOTO: Police Minister General Bheki Cele and other senior members of the police executive conducted an inspection of lockdown operations in Limpopo yesterday. SOURCE: Twitter @SAPoliceService

Police action is killing South Africans nearly as fast as COVID-19, if allegations reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) are to be believed.

Complaints received by the police watchdog implicate the South African Police Service (SAPS) in eight deaths since the start of the nationwide lockdown – only one fewer than the number who have died from the virus itself. 

The release of information about the allegations comes after multiple reports of police brutality during the lockdown. At least three police officers are already facing murder charges for the deaths of South African citizens, according to News24. 

IPID is investigating nearly 40 complaints that have been filed since the start of the lockdown on 27 March. 

These include cases of nonfatal police brutality, some of which have been documented and widely shared on social media. One video, posted to YouTube, purports to show a man being beaten for violating the lockdown. Another, appearing to show policemen firing on a group of protesting healthcare workers with flash grenades and rubber bullets, has been retweeted hundreds of times.

This video, apparently circulated by a community activist in Khayelitsha, was uploaded to YouTube by news site GroundUp. It appears to show a man being beaten by a police officer for violating lockdown regulations.
https://twitter.com/Briggar/status/1244908720741666817
This tweet is one of many that include this video of police tossing flash grenades and firing rubber bullets on protesters, apparently at Bongani Regional Hospital in Welkom, Free State.

President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed concerns regarding police violence during a coronavirus update delivered on Monday. “We have made it clear that the task of our security personnel is to support, reassure and comfort our people … they must not cause harm to any of our people,” he said.

But some experts, including Andrew Faull of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, fear that police violence may escalate an already-dangerous situation.

“If on top of their socio-economic hardship citizens routinely experience or perceive abuse by state officials during the lockdown, it is possible that some may rebel,” Faull wrote for Daily Maverick. “[T]he risks posed by continued, illegitimate state violence … could be as great as those brought by the pandemic.”

Others are asking for patience. In an anonymous op-ed published in Daily Maverick, a police officer described the severe stress law enforcement is under during this crisis, urging citizens to cooperate. “[L]ockdown only works if there is compliance,” the officer wrote. 

The effects of the lockdown on police-citizen relations might be clear only in retrospect. Daneel Knoetze, writing for GroundUp, noted that the present rate of complaint submissions to the IPID is in line with pre-lockdown trends, indicating that the problem predated coronavirus. 

But even if the issue of police violence is old news, Knoetze hopes that its increased publicity will have positive effects – such as an increase in funding for the IPID.

“[P]oliticians used the uniqueness of the lockdown moment to call out abuses by the police,” he wrote. “These calls will ring hollow in time, if they do not lead … to policy interventions to hold the transgressors and police management accountable long after the lockdown has ended.”

In a time of isolation, communities come together

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By Laura Peterjohn

MAIN PHOTO: An image that has been widely shared shows a pair of bears outside a house in Stockport, England. The owners of the house have been putting them out in different outfits, enacting different home-bound scenarios for the entertainment of their neighbors and gaining a following on social media. SOURCE: @Adam_Harrison13 Twitter

While people are being forced to make sure they keep their distance, communities are uniting behind a common cause: supporting each other in a time of need.

As health care workers place themselves on the front line of the pandemic, working long hours at great personal risk, communities have been getting creative in finding ways to show thanks while still following the strict social distancing guidelines in place.

In a gesture that started in Wuhan, China, the city where the disease was first reported, people  began taking to their balconies at an agreed time each evening to cheer loudly in support of the workers on the front lines.

When the disease began migrating, so did the shows of support. Evolving into clapping, shouting, drumming, whistling and even blowing trumpets or South African vuvuzelas the cheer can be heard every night in nations on every continent. 

https://twitter.com/dr_boland/status/1244086214711365632?s=21

 In Italy, one of the nations hit hardest by the pandemic, communities have taken it to another level with residents playing music together and singing songs nightly. CNN reports that during the lockdown, radio stations have even gone so far as coordinating the songs they play, with the national anthem being played at the same time every night.

In the United States teddy bears have started popping up in windows all over the country reports the BBC. A scavenger hunt that is perfect for social distancing, the bears are encouraging children to go on socially-distanced walks outdoors while providing a safe activity for them during quarantine.

Also in the United States, Little Free Libraries that usually serve as places where you can take books that their owner wants to give away are becoming food pantries with the idea that those who are in need can take.

Zoombombing: The New Online Epidemic

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By Skylar Thomas

MAIN PHOTO: Zoombombing has become a phenomenon on the online meeting platform. The platform which offers easy web conferencing is under scrutiny. (Source: Zoom website)

With the global need for online communication in the current coronavirus crisis, many have been turning to the US-based online platform Zoom for business meetings, online classes and even for social hangouts.

Unfortunately, along with the ease of communication is a not-so-new phenomenon – internet harassment.

In a trend known as “Zoombombing”, online trolls have been hijacking Zoom meetings uninvited and sharing lewd or offensive content. Their targets have included public meetings, online classes, and other social gatherings.

One public meeting hosted by the US food chain Chipotle was forced to end prematurely after a user managed to broadcast pornographic material from their screen.

https://twitter.com/exitpost/status/1240040106284777475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1240040106284777475&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F03%2F20%2Fstyle%2Fzoombombing-zoom-trolling.html

Other Zoombombings have taken a more malicious form. A doctoral student’s presentation was interrupted when an unidentified user drew male genitalia and wrote racial slurs, according to a report by NPR.

The phenomenon has become so widespread that some online trolls are now offering to raid Zoom meetings at users’ request. Investigators from the FBI in Boston are taking the issue seriously, calling on people to report instances of Zoombombing to the authorities.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has apologised to users in a post on the company website.

“We absolutely condemn these types of attacks and deeply feel for anyone whose meeting has been interrupted in this way”, he wrote.

In a separate post, Zoom has advised users on how to prevent their meeting from being sabotaged. For instance, meeting hosts can block participants from sharing their screens and set up password protections. The company has also strongly discouraged users from sharing meeting details on public platforms, where they are more accessible to online trolls.

Zoom’s popularity has exploded over the past three months as more people stay at home during the pandemic. The company reported that the platform hasd 200 million users as of March, up from just 10 million in December. The increasing usage has put the company under intense scrutiny.

The website Motherboard reported in March that Zoom had been sending user data to Facebook – even from users who did not own a Facebook account. Zoom has since stopped the practice and issued a public apology, but the company is now facing a lawsuit over its handling of user data.

The Guardian reported that security researchers have raised concerns about the platform, including its lax privacy controls and security vulnerabilities.

The publication said New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, had sent a letter to the company asking it to explain what it had done to fix problems that had been identified. She highlighted concerns about security vulnerabilities that might allow third parties to gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams.

Earlier this week, the company pledged to devote all its efforts to improving security measures and protecting user data.

Feel-good fake news? Shutdowns bring spate of urban wildlife sightings – and plenty of misinformation

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By Ainsley Ash & Renny Simone

Viral photos, purporting to show wild animals ‘reclaiming’ cities left vacant by coronavirus shutdowns, have been making the rounds on social media. But are these feel-good posts too good to be true?

A recent tweet featuring photos of dolphins and swans swimming in clear Venice canals has amassed tens of thousands of likes. The user celebrates that “[n]ature just hit the reset button on us”. Another tweet celebrating the first sighting of the critically endangered Malabar civet since 1990 has been retweeted thousands of times – with a video to prove it.

Like the countless others that have followed, these posts claim that shutdown protocols are causing the return of wildlife to the world’s now-vacant cities. The reappearance of these animals has been the subject of articles from outlets including The Guardian, the New York Post, and The New York Times. 

Posts like these provide a silver lining for victims of COVID-19’s disruptive spread, but the reality behind them is often disappointing. National Geographic wrote that the video of the ‘Venetian’ dolphins was actually taken at a port hundreds of miles away.

Why do people want to believe these posts? Susan Clayton, a psychology and environmental studies professor at the College of Wooster, told National Geographic, “People hope that, no matter what we’ve done, nature is powerful enough to rise above it.” The sense of hope that the stories bring might feel real, but the posts themselves often are not. 

As for the posts that are genuine, there is usually much more to the story than coronavirus shutdowns. Urban ecologists have been studying the return of wildlife to cities for decades. Many of these changes came before coronavirus and the emptying of urban spaces. In San Francisco, for example, excited Twitter users have been uploading photos of coyotes roaming the streets. But an article about the city’s rebounding coyote population was published on February 20th – more than two weeks before San Francisco’s first reported case of COVID-19. 

Ecologists have been quick to warn against the spread of misinformation about urban wildlife. Parveen Kaswan, a member of the Indian Forest Service, corrected a misleading photo purporting to show deer walking the streets of Jaipur. According to Kaswan, the photo was actually taken in Haridwar, where such sightings are common – the city borders Rajaji National Park. “[S]preading positivity is one thing,” Kaswan tweeted. “Dumbing down society is another.”

Others, though, have taken a more lighthearted approach to the issue of misleading wildlife posts. Memes and screenshots depicting everything from dinosaurs in New York’s Central Park to the cast of Cats in a London square celebrate the ‘return of nature’ to the world’s cities.

It is too early to tell which impulse – to celebrate, educate, or make fun of – will win the day.

Warnings as Victoria Falls thunders again

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By Lizzie Stricklin

Victoria Falls is thundering again after a deluge of rainfall increased Zambezi River flows this week, prompting a deluge of beautiful photographs – but also public concern about the stability of the Kariba Dam downriver.

Images of a surging waterfall posted to social media sites by photographers show the waterfall traditionally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or “the smoke that thunders”, living up to its name for the first time in years after an extended drought that had reduced the African landmark to a shallow stream.

The Zambezi River Authority, a corporation that oversees the maintenance of dams on the Zambezi River, reported last week that the Zambezi River flows recorded at Victoria Falls were 54% above the long-term average.

The surge in water is expected to continue, as upstream Zambezi River flows recorded in Chavuma, Zambia, were 523% above flows recorded in 2019, the Zambezi River Authority reported. These are the highest flows reported in the past 20 years, indicating that Victoria Falls will soon experience a further surge in flows as the water moves downstream.

The revival of one of Zambia and Zimbabwe’s major tourist drawcards comes only a few days after the two governments announced Victoria Falls would be closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak. On the Zimbabwean side, tourist bookings in the area had already fallen by 50% before the lockdown as the government’s earlier Covid-19 restriction that all incoming tourists present a ‘health certificate’ prompted many cancellations.

Energy and environmental experts have expressed concern about the structural integrity of the Kariba Dam, which lies downriver from Victoria Falls and will take on the surging flow in the coming weeks.

https://twitter.com/RangaMberi/status/1174619378068983808

The Kariba Dam has been undergoing repairs since 2015, in the wake of concerns that its retaining wall could collapse. A 2014 report on the damn’s possible collapse by the Institute of Risk Management of South Africa warned that 181 billion cubic metres of water could be released if the dam wall failed. It would take eight hours for a wall of water to reach and destroy the Cahora Bassa dam in central Mozambique. It was estimated at the time that the lives of 3.5 million people would be at risk and some 30 million others would suffer severe economic impact.

Repair work, according to the World Bank, has included reshaping the plunge pool to limit erosion and renovating spillway infrastructure. According to The Herald, repairing the spillway is especially important because it allows water to be released from Lake Kariba if water levels are too high. Without repair, the sluice gates may jam and cause the dam to overflow, putting downstream communities at risk, The Herald reported.

According to the ZRA, repairs to the plunge pool and spillway are not expected to be complete until 2023 and 2025, respectively. The authority has not commented on whether the dam will be able to withstand the increased river flows. The Kariba Dam provides electricity for both Zambia and Zimbabwe, but its inflow in the past year was below average, the Zambezi River Authority reported. This lack of water has been one of the causes of load shedding and electricity shortages in both countries.

200 Homeless People Escape Mandatory Shelter in Pretoria

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By Ayinde Summey

Caption: Homeless people at the Caledonian Stadium in Pretoria. Photo: Department of Social Development.

Authorities in Pretoria this week found themselves with a headache after their efforts to provide accommodation for homeless people in a local stadium has been rejected by some.

Tshwane Law Enforcement officers relocated more than 2 000 homeless people to the Caledonian Stadium in Pretoria. There they were given shelter with food. However the conditions became an issue for some people. Crowding also became a problem and no one was allowed to leave.

Yesterday, several news outlets reported that about 200 people had escaped from the shelter, taking advantage of distracted and severely outnumbered police officers.

The escapees said there was insufficient and poor quality food being supplied.

The authorities reportedly had not anticipated that so many people would need to be accommodated.

Instead of trying to fit all the homeless people into the Caledonian Stadium, it will be used as an initial screening centre before people are allocated accommodation. New locations for homeless people are now being set up.

Yesterday Social Development Minister Bogopane Zulu visited the stadium to see for herself what conditions people are being kept in and to monitor lockdown regulations.

Coronavirus: A Pandemic of Unemployment

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As nations around the globe are placed in lock down, enforcing polices of social distancing and government “stay at home” orders to slow the spread of COVID-19, millions of businesses are being deemed ”non-essential to daily life” forcing their doors to close.

This has prompted the layoff of millions of workers, who are seeing their jobs all but vanish overnight. With many countries extending their restrictions beyond the initial date, more and more people are facing the new reality of unemployment. 

In the United States 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment in the last week, with New York Times reporting that 10 million jobs have vanished in the last two weeks. This leaves the US unemployment rate at around 15%, a rate that is three times higher than during the 2008 recession, and a rate that hasn’t been seen in the country since the stock market crash and the great depression that followed it in 1929.

There are predictions that the worst is yet to come. Economists at the University of Oxford suggest the United States could see 20 million more jobs lost, pushing the unemployment rate to 35% – a rate the nation has never seen before, reports the country’s National Public Radio. 

In Germany, finance minister of the Hesse region, Thomas Schaefer, committed suicide, reportedly after being deeply worried about the economic effects the virus would have on the global economy. 

The New York Times reports that in Spain, 800,000 Spanish workers lost their jobs in March, pushing unemployment rates to 14%. Despite strict orders from the government for citizens to remain in their homes, hundreds of people have been lining up outside social security offices daily in attempts to collect unemployment benefits.

The BBC reports that British Airways is in talks to suspend 32,000 members of its staff, and the American-based airplane manufacturer Boeing has announced its own layoffs after a large number of countries issued travel bans, greatly decreasing demand.

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