As a telemarketer for a range of charities, Clare Hamman spends a lot of time on the phone. In the last couple of weeks, conversation with those on the other end has started to veer off-topic: “I was hearing so many people say ‘what’s going on?’, ‘I can’t afford to stockpile’ and ‘what do I do?’” she says, explaining that many of the people she reaches at home during the day are pensioners or unemployed.
Hamman turned to a Facebook group about coronavirus updates for help. She posted asking for suggestions around how Australians with limited budgets could prepare to self-isolate when they can’t afford to bulk buy groceries, and plans to compile the tips into a fact sheet that can be shared on social media.
Respondents shared advice for grocery shopping on the cheap, as well as broader ideas for ways to pitch in – like checking in on elderly neighbours, or creating WhatsApp groups to keep in touch with people on their street. “People genuinely had good tips and practical ideas about what to do,” she says. “They wanted to help.”
The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.
The UN agency advises people to:
- Frequently wash their hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or warm water and soap
- Cover their mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue when sneezing or coughing
- Avoid close contact with anyone who has a fever or cough
- Seek early medical help if they have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, and share their travel history with healthcare providers
- Advice about face masks varies. Wearing them while out and about may offer some protection against both spreading and catching the virus via coughs and sneezes, but it is not a cast-iron guarantee of protection
Many countries are now enforcing or recommending curfews or lockdowns. Check with your local authorities for up-to-date information about the situation in your area.
In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days.
If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.
As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds, Australians have turned to online communities like these for support and assistance. Some are in Facebook groups, others have set up on Reddit boards or taken over parenting forums. As well as just assuaging anxieties, these online spaces have become sites of grassroots responses to a crisis where physically showing up for each other isn’t a solution.
Of course, this being the internet, not every comment in these communities is constructive. But enough are: in the same Covid-19 group that Clare Hamman posted in, others offered advice on how to care for kids with asthma or relatives in poor health. Some members posted tips on how they planned to share essentials with neighbours without coming into physical contact; one woman encouraged those with tissues or toilet paper to spare to give it away.
“Let’s show the world how we react in a crisis and that we are kind and not selfish!!!” she wrote, backed up by a barrage of likes and comments. Toilet paper is a common topic of these posts: on Reddit, users have directed those out of the community to check their local buy-swap-sell groups on Facebook, where people are arranging to share their supply with others in their neighbourhood.
When Melbourne resident Regina George offered to give away spare toilet paper on a buy-swap-sell group on 5 March, she received hundreds of positive messages, “from people just telling me how my post had restored their faith in humanity, and many messages of thanks. I only had about 15 people ask for the toilet paper and I ended up giving out more than I advertised.”
She continues: “Several people contacted me wanting to give me toilet paper so I could give away more but I told them to just do what I did.” The Facebook page took notice and “decided that no one was allowed to sell toilet paper on their page. That made me so happy and now I set others doing the same and giving it away.”
Dianne Regan, who founded an Australia coronavirus group six weeks ago, feels communities like hers exist to plug the gap left by what many perceive as an inadequate government response. “I feel angry at the government that they’ve waited so long to inform people. We don’t want fear-mongering and people panicking, but they should have been giving better directives and information to the public so that Australians wouldn’t be out clearing shelves and fighting with each other over toilet paper.”
She admits that the mood in the group is “mixed”, but thinks that it’s ultimately a hopeful space. “The number one rule for the group is that people need to be supportive, they need to be kind and respect that people have different anxiety levels.”
Nextdoor, an app that allows users to connect with others in their neighbourhood, has seen a “big spike” in engagement and sign-ups over the past week. They say many Australians are using the app to arrange how they can lend a hand to others in their local area. “We saw people using Nextdoor during the bushfires to help each other out with evacuations or rescuing each other’s animals, so I’m not surprised to see everybody turning to [the app] in this situation as well,” says Jennie Sager, the company’s Australian Country Manager.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, Nextdoor has created a functionality on the app that allows users to mark themselves as “able to help” their neighbours. “It pre-populates a post which you can edit to say how you can help – for instance I can leave groceries at your front door, or I can pick up your prescriptions,” Sager says. “We launched that over the weekend and saw it instantly take off.” The app has also created a flyer with basic information that can be printed off and put in the mailbox or under the front door of elderly neighbours who might not be on the internet.
Dan Suan, a clinical immunologist at one of Sydney’s biggest hospitals, used Facebook this weekend to spread another message. In a group for Australia and New Zealand doctors to discuss Covid-19, he wrote a post stressing the importance of immediate social distancing to limit the spread of the virus. It was later reposted publicly on his wall and has now been shared over 11,000 times. Suan thinks the post resonated because it offered a practical solution to the crisis.
“I think people read that and thought, ‘oh my goodness, the answer to this epidemic doesn’t lie outside. It’s not the government, it’s not the hospitals, it lies in me and my personal responsibility,’” he tells Guardian Australia. “It’s a really positive social message. It’s about what we can do to actually turn the tide of this epidemic for our country and I think it’s helping people. There’s so much fear and anxiety out there at the moment that people feel helpless, and the post gave them something they can do.”
Outside of designated Covid-19 groups, some are using their personal social media pages – and the downtime social distancing has given them – to help in creative ways. On his Instagram, Melbourne artist Grant Jonathon asked for volunteers to help with deliveries and errands for those who are currently isolating. Australians who can help were encouraged to comment with where they live, so that those stuck at home could scan for someone available in their area.
Abroad, when UK filmmaker Jeanie Finlay found her upcoming film shoot cancelled by coronavirus, she used her social media to offer free mentoring sessions over Skype to documentary filmmakers. “No charge, no catch, just something [positive] in these uncertain times,” she wrote. Right now, those are words for the internet to live by.
Have you seen any great examples of people connecting online during the crisis? Let us know in the comments. Some comments may be published.
