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I get lots of kind words from both friends and strangers from my former hometown of Toronto about my sister, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health. She leads Toronto Public Health, Canada’s largest public health agency and which provides public health programs for Canada’s largest city and economic capital. As you might expect, she’s been working very long days for the past weeks, as COVID-19 has grown from mystery illness to epidemic to full-blown pandemic, while maintaining a level of chill required to manage a crisis of this magnitude.

Here’s she is at a news conference in March 12th, courtesy of CP24, Toronto’s 24-hour local news channel…

…and here she is on March 13th:

Her birthday was last week, and I was able to FaceTime with her for only a few minutes. She didn’t have any time to celebrate, as it’s been super-long days seven days a week for her, as she and her team manage Toronto’s response to this crisis. It’s a difficult, high-stakes challenge, but I’m glad that she’s on the case.

Once this is over, be sure to send her your thanks.

Worth checking out

Here’s Eileen speaking about the opioid crisis:

And here’s some reading material from the Toronto media:

• Toronto Star: How Toronto’s chief medical officer became the people’s doctor
• Toronto Life: Q&A: Toronto’s chief medical officer on supervised injection sites, and why drug leniency may be good policy
• Toronto Life: Q&A: Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, on dealing with Doug Ford’s cuts

This photo has only just begun to make the internet rounds, but it’s pretty powerful. Share it far and wide!

Even though people are confined to their homes in Sicily, it appears that people there have worked out ways to keep social distancing from turning into social isolation through the best social technology out there — the accordion!

Here’s a video posted to Twitter from John Nichols:

You can see the original tweet here:

Sicily has figured out this whole self-isolation thing.#COVID19 #CoronavirusPandemic pic.twitter.com/93whPVtQcR

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) March 13, 2020

Tap the poster to see it at full size.

In the previous post, I suggested that you time washing your hands by reciting the break to the Violent Femmes’ Kiss Off. For those of you who prefer a sci-fi approach, how about the Litany Against Fear from Dune?

Thanks to Trey Steinhoff for the find!

Are you tired of singing Happy Birthday to You to ensure you’re washing your hands for 20 seconds? Want to sing a different, cooler, angstier song? Want to wash for an extra ten seconds?

Just sing the break from Violent Femmes’ Kiss Off. On their eponymous album, this section takes exactly 30 seconds:

I take one, one, one ’cause you left me and
Two, two, two for my family and
Three, three, three for my heartache and
Four, four, four for my headaches and
Five, five, five for my lonely and
Six, six, six for my sorrow and
Seven, seven n-n-n-no tomorrow and
Eight, eight, I forget what eight was for, but
Nine, nine, nine for a lost god, and
Ten, ten, ten, ten for everything! Everything! Everything! Everything!

To slightly twist the lyrics:

You’ll wash your hands, but you won’t mind
You’ll wash your hands, you should do it all the time

Tao the meme to see it at full size.

You can’t keep a good meme down!

Thanks to Leah Snowbender for the find! This is my version of the meme, which features better typography.