Social Distancing is Hard, But Apps can Ease COVID-19 Worries

While employees have been forced to work from home, they have been turning to teleconference apps to help them stay connected with coworkers and supervisors. One app that has seen a boost since the coronavirus outbreak is Zoom.

The video conferencing app has seen a rise in popularity as everyone from professionals to college students has been quarantined at home. The Zoom iOS app became the top free download in Apple’s App Store, according to the New York Times, with nearly 600,000 people downloading the app. It’s also available on Android.

In fact, people have been flocking to Zoom despite other popular video services like Google Hangouts and Skype. It’s easy to create a Zoom account and join a meeting. All you need is a meeting ID to invite people to your video session.

The app also features chatting functionality, file sharing and other fun features, like virtual backgrounds that people have been using to make memes and keep things fun and light. The app supports up to 100 people in a room. There are both free and paid Zoom plans.

Turn your home into a workout center

With gyms closing their doors out of safety concerns, people have been turning their living rooms and garages into workout centers. There are plenty of workout apps that can help people stay in shape while social distancing.

For instance, Daily Burn is an app that brings the trainer to your home. The app offers workouts from cardio and strength training to yoga and pilates and even meditation. Daily Burn also features motivational reminders and trainer tips for health and fitness and social and community features to get you sweating along with a community of people.

The app announced it was suspending production of daily workouts but that it was upgrading all current members to premium access free of charge for 60 days.

“This will grant everyone access to all past DB365 workouts and all audio workouts. All users will have 2,000+ reasons to workout!,” Daily Burn said in a post. “We know it's important to have a great workout to look forward to and we'll make sure that happens every day until we resume making new shows. We're also working on bringing you new content and collections soon, including something for the whole family.”

Can I make an appointment?

Maybe the hardest part of social distancing is trying to find places that are still taking appointments for services like wellness and beauty services from hair appointments to massage therapy.

Kelley Garmon, a Charlotte, North Carolina mom, has created an app that can help find businesses who have open appointments to fill. WhooCan lets consumers see which businesses are still open during this difficult time as some businesses can't afford the loss in revenue. Garmon, who is a teacher and has a master’s in education, said it’s been two years since she had the idea for WhooCan and has been developing the app for about 18 months.

“Everyone loves the idea,” said Garmon. “Customers like it because they can get last-minute appointments without the usual texting/calling around, and vendors love it because they can push out their openings to the public in real-time at no charge. It's definitely a win-win.”

Good opportunity to play with VR

One final app that can help offset cabin fever is ‎YouVisit VR, a virtual reality app for exploring. The app has options for virtual adventures. You can travel to Necker Island or visit New York City.

Indeed, every story is interactive so you can kind of make your own way through it and, of course, you can look around at 360 degrees to take everything in. With this app, you can explore the world even if you’re self quarantined.