‘Genuine club-banger’: Coronavirus songs in Asia that have gone viral

A video released by Vietnam’s health ministry telling people to ‘push back the corona’ with good hygiene has been viewed more than 5 million times

In Singapore, a comedic character once again fronts a virus video, while two Hong Kong children sing a song asking Carrie Lam to ‘hear the people’s voices’

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Singapore entertainer Gurmit Singh in Mothership’s coronavirus video ‘Wash Yo Hands’. Photo: YouTube

Published: 2:30pm, 7 Mar 2020Updated: 2:30pm, 7 Mar 2020

For many in Singapore, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak is associated with a popular television character rapping that “Sars is the virus that I just want to minus”. In four minutes, construction boss Phua Chu Kang urges Singaporeans to not work if they are sick, wear a mask to the doctor, not doc-hop and “wash your hands whenever you can”.

As the world now grapples with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, another Asian virus song is capturing hearts and, this time round, it is also going global.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health has released an animated video to the tune of local pop song Jealous, tweaking the lyrics to tell viewers to “push back the virus Corona, Corona” with good handwashing.

The video, titled Ghen Cô Vy, garnered 5.6 million views as of Friday evening. The tune was so catchy that John Oliver, the host of the satirical US news programme Last Week Tonight, featured it on his show, calling it a “genuine club-banger”. Vietnamese are also uploading videos of themselves dancing to the song on Tik Tok.

A screengrab from Vietnamese coronavirus song Ghen Cô Vy. Photo: YouTube

That the virus education song has gone viral is good for public education, said Edwin Yeo, general manager of communications consultancy SPRG Singapore.

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