Egyptian actor and singer Mohamed Ramadan has released a new song about the coronavirus, and it’s both catchy and cheesy in equal measure.
Ramadan starts the song – called Coronavirus – with a percussive "coronaronarona" chant before he starts talking about how the virus has turned the world on its head.
The El Diesel star posted a video on his Facebook page showing him sing parts of the high-octane song in his car along with his daughter.
In the video, Ramadan wears a surgical mask around his neck, while his daughter sports a pair of ears in the form of a headband.
The song seems to send a message of encouragement to listeners, saying "we will find a solution".
We can’t tell whether this is a bid by Ramadan to raise awareness, satisfy a creative impulse, or to simply have a minute longer in the spotlight.
If it’s the latter, it seems to have worked, as the video has been played millions of times on Ramadan’s Instagram and Facebook pages. On Instagram alone, it received more than three million views in less than 24 hours, while on Facebook it has had 6.5m views.
It looks like the whole song will be release imminently, too: “soon,” Ramadan captioned the video, replacing the Os with sneezing and mask-wearing emojis.
Ramadan – who recently celebrated getting 12m followers on Instagram – is currently starring in the show Prince.
The programme is one of DMC’s most popular this Ramadan. The actor recently met some criticism after he tore an Egyptian passport in the show while playing the lead character, Radhwan.
On April 27, Egyptian lawyer Ayman Mahfouz filed a legal complaint against Ramadan over the scene, but in the show, the character actually destroys his passport to state that his home is in Egypt.
Mahfouz reportedly accused the star of "working to insult all the symbols of the Egyptian state.”