- A coronavirus-related dance challenge is taking social media by storm.
- The dance is set to a Vietnamese song that teaches listeners to wash their hands and avoid big crowds to ward off the virus.
- On TikTok, renditions of choreographer Quang Dang's dance have amassed more than 20 million views.
- View more episodes of Business Insider Today on Facebook.
A catchy tune demonstrating coronavirus safety tips is taking the world by storm.
As millions of people under lockdown turn to social media, the "Ghen Co Vy" dance challenge has become wildly popular.
Vietnamese dancer and choreographer Quang Dang created the dance challenge, which is set to the chorus of "Ghen Co Vy," or "Jealous Coronavirus," by singers Min and Erik. The song, which has racked up more than 23 million views on YouTube, instructs listeners to wash their hands, avoid touching their faces, stay away from big crowds, and send the virus away.
On TikTok, users have posted videos of themselves recreating Dang's dance - the hashtag #GhenCoVyChallenge has 21.5 million views and counting on the platform.
Dang said he was surprised by the overwhelming global response to his video.
"I was so happy," Dang told Business Insider Today. "There's some people, they say that my dance will spread faster than the virus itself," Quang Dang told Business Insider Today.
That's hardly what Dang expected when Vietnam's National Institute of Occupational and Environmental Health approached him in February to create the dance - which he said he did in 15 minutes.
Nearly a month and a half later, people all over the world have shared their own renditions online, including the singer Erik, Miss Universe Vietnam, members of the British Red Cross, and doctors in the US.
The video was shared by UNICEF, and it was even featured on a recent episode of "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."
"Vietnam made a song about washing your hands to prevent coronavirus infection and it absolutely slaps," the host commented. "That's a club banger right there."
Dang thinks the song's catchiness and the simplicity of his moves helped it gain traction.
"My dance is very simple and it's very cute," he told Business Insider Today. "You can stand up and dance it and you can sit down and you're even on a toilet, you can dance on a toilet too."
Dang's choreography is the latest of several examples of people expressing themselves through dance as they cope with lengthy quarantines. Joan Wittig, a creative arts therapy professor at Pratt Institute, said dancing is a way people share emotional experiences during times of uncertainty.
"When so much of the world is having to be in pretty strict isolation, where you're at home by yourself or with your family or whoever you live with, there are ways that we can connect with each other through the internet," she said.
"We need to communicate, we need to be in connection with each other. And dance allows us to do that. And it allows us to do that across cultures, across language. There are no barriers."
Dang, meanwhile, hopes the dance craze he started can help alleviate people's anxiety.
"When I dance, I feel really happy and enjoy it," he said. "In times like this, I have a strong belief, a belief in dance and music and art. They can connect people together and together people can look into the bright side of life."
