Getting Bored. Isolated. Depressed. Don't!

"I know that you're not at risk, and that you want to see your friends. But if you do it, people will die."
"Even if you don't show the symptoms, you could still be carrying the genome, which means that  you can't go see that show."
"I haven't showered in three days, but my hands have never been cleaner."
Beatrice Martin (Coeur de Pirate), video, Quebec

"Limit your outings, try to avoid gatherings and respect social distancing measures."
"Greet people from a distance and wash your hands frequently."
"All these small individual sacrifices will minimize the impact of this pandemic on our community."
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, Super Bowl-winning football player, M.D.

"The message I have today is for youth and teens. We have seen in Italy and in South Korea that young people were very important in the transmission of the virus and the information we have so far is that they don't take that seriously enough right now."
"Maybe as a young guy or young girl you're not really at risk of that, but you can give the virus to your grandmother or grandfather and then they are at risk."
Quebec Premier Francois Legault 

"Quebec authorities are using the proper channels to reach their target audience. If you're trying to get a message across to young people, then you need to go through social media. And they are doing that very successfully."
"Will that message get through? We'll find out soon. But coercive methods are not usually the most effective when speaking to rebellious teens. So I think this is the right strategy."
Dr.Sandrine Prom Tep, marketing professor, Universite du Quebec au Montreal, ESG business school

Montreal singer-songwriter Coeur de Pirate

When little else works to persuade the young on a prudent course of action, meet the  young on their own favoured grounds; social media platforms. And to that end, Quebec's Premier Legault sent out an appeal to popular Quebec celebrities whose following is mostly the young in the province, to help deliver a message in the interests of aiding the province to move toward a  high level of awareness among all its citizens, old and  young alike.

That appeal elicited the desired fallout, when popular Quebecois musicians, actors, comedians and athletes took to social media with videos, tweets and memes to appeal to the consciousness of young people in the province moved by the messages of the entertainers that have won popular acclaim as celebrities in the opinion of their young followers who have been immune to the messages urging social distancing to help avoid growing infection with COVID-19.

To date, 121 people in Quebec have been confirmed to have the novel coronavirus that is sending shock waves all over the world. One person has thus far died of the coronavirus in the province. The province is intent on delivering a simple enough message: stay home. Wash your hands. Avoid being a vector for transmission of the coronavirus.

Quebec is set on avoiding, if at all possible, a scenario where a St.Patrick's Day party took place in the streets of Kingston, where despite calls for it to be cancelled, Queen's University students chose to party. And something peculiar has arisen in that the Province of Quebec's director of Public Health, Dr.Horacio Arruda, who has gained the trust and admiration of Quebecers for his plain speaking style, has delivered a message of his own and it is resonating.

"Maybe parents should put soap and Purell next to the beer for your teens, and again, I do not recommend what I would call any exchange of bodily fluids at this time", Dr.Arruda delivered with a light smile during a daily briefing. In a video that highlights Dr.Arruda's messaging he explains the lack of rationality behind wearing a mask by those not infected by COVID-19.

"Wash my hands, so the virus I could have caught in the metro isn't on my hands anymore. But if I only wear a mask and think I'm protected, then I touch things and then I touch my face ...", he stated, while poking fingers around his eyes. His tone and explanations have gained him high praise in the Quebec media and approval from the public.

"Try doing what you never have time to do", suggested the doctor. As for himself,  his plans include trying out new recipes for Portuguese egg tarts. "It could be yoga. It could be music. It could be dancing, maybe even dancing online with someone else over FaceTime. But don't stay at home doing nothing. You'll get depressed."