Need a laugh? We've got you Covid with these virus songs and memes

And in the fight against the spread of boredom in lockdown and self-isolation too.

The COVID-19 pandemic is no joke, but toilet paper and working-from-home memes have been racing around the internet and social networks for weeks.

Now musical parodies are the latest online craze proving infectiously funny and oh-so shareable.

Yes, with millions of people around the world staying home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, rewriting the lyrics to your favorite song has evidently become a thing.

Cue the rousing strains of Rodgers and Hammerstein's beloved musical The Sound of Music, and a new version of Do Re Mi for the age of corona.

Let's start at the very beginning / A sore throat, a cough in Wuhan

And in no time at all, there were 1, 2, 3

And one went on a plane - took it overseas

A sing-along-worthy COVID-19 health tutorial as performed by Julie Andrews' heavenly Maria and the "Van Trapplings" is just one of the inspired musical inventions to have stuck a chord online this week.

Because you are way too busy doing Prime Minister-approved jigsaw puzzles, home-schooling the kids in trigonometry and reorganising the back shed, we've trawled the web for some of the most contagiously funny memes and musical parodies going viral.

Created by New Zealand school principal and photographer Shirley Serban and watched by almost 3.7 million people on YouTube since it was posted on Saturday, this five-minute clip opens with Julie Andrews in Maria mode in the Austrian alps strumming her guitar for the Von Trapp children, or the "Von Trapplings" as Serban has dubbed them.

Social life must stay online / Keep 2 metres clear of me,

Watch TV, drink lots of wine / That will kill Covid-19!

"I wrote it to humour myself," Serban said, describing her re-wording of the song and cheeky captioning of the movie sequence as "a little project I worked on yesterday while on lockdown".

On a serious note, she made clear in her YouTube post that while the song references Wuhan she is "not anti-China".

"While Wuhan is the acknowledged epicentre of this pandemic, argument about origin doesn't change that fact, or, in my opinion, give reason for anyone to think negatively about the region," Serban said.

With 3.8 million views since it was posted on March 22, this YouTub clip rewrites the 1975 Queen classic as "Coronavirus Rhapsody".

What began as a series of tweets by US comedian Dana Jay Bein has been performed - Freddie Mercury rock opera-style - by singer Adrian Grimes, with new lyrics that riff on the global health emergency we're all living through.

Is this a sore throat? Is this just allergies?

Caught in a lockdown. No escape from the family.

Don't touch your eyes. Just hand sanitise quickly.

In an amusingly re-worded version of his 1969 song Sweet Caroline, singer Neil Diamond is encouraging his fans to wash their hands and practice social distancing.

In a video posted to Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, Diamond sits fireside with his pet dog and strums a guitar and croons new lyrics to his enduring ballad.

Hands ... washing hands / Reaching out ...

Don't touch me / I won't touch you.

If you find some people's lack of social distancing disturbing, you need to tag them into some of the Darth Vader memes doing the rounds lately.

Help us, Star Wars coronavirus memes. You're our only hope.

Hannibal Lecter, the super-smart, super-scary shut-in played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of The Lambs, has also popped up on social media with some, er, food for thought.

Because you enjoyed our original batch of hand-picked, fully sanitised 19 COVID-19 memes and the sequel selection, 19 more COVID-19 memes, we've scoured social media for another 19 coronavirus memes.

So, here's to spreading joy and laughter instead of germs. Don't forget to share!

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