Coronavirus

Santa Monica parks are no longer filled with humans ... they're being overrun by a gaggle of squirrels ... and the video is absolutely NUTS!!!

Check out the furry little critters chilling out and catching some rays in the parks along the world-famous Santa Monica Beach ... the squirrels definitely seem way more relaxed and comfortable now that tourists and locals are nowhere to be found.

Most people are just staying indoors to prevent the spread of the coronavirus ... allowing these squirrels to roam free without a care in the world.

Seriously ... have you ever seen squirrels out in force like this before?!?

The squirrel scene is reminiscent of what we've already seen over in Wales, where an entire town is being overrun by goats as humans shelter-in-place.

Steakhouses, retailers and luxury garment shops are terrified of looters, and one industry is benefitting from their fears ... the board-up business.

A handful of board-up companies tell us they've been hammering and nailing shops from the Embarcadero in San Francisco to Chicago's Michigan Ave.

Most of the companies we spoke with say they were hired to do hazard cleanups, like crime scenes, in the past ... but can now make upward of $5k a pop just for boarding up a single store or restaurant front.

We're told they've been slammed with rush orders ever since the end of March when stay-at-home edicts went into effect most place. Some clients even include residential townhouses in NYC, iconic restaurant Smith & Wollensky and shi-shi stores like Versace and Jimmy Choo.

A post office near our nation's capital has gone to great lengths to keep coronavirus from spreading to its workers -- the philosophy being ... see no evil, breathe no evil.

Check out these photos TMZ got this weekend at a PO in Annandale, VA -- just 20 or so minutes outside of central D.C. You can see these long opaque vinyl tarps hanging from the ceiling and almost completely covering the mail tellers interacting with customers.

BTW, we're told these tarps were NOT set up on Friday ... so it seems the Post Office rolled them out (literally) overnight in an attempt to maintain as little contact as possible. As for why so blurry -- maybe these federal workers are sick of looking at people's mugs.

It's just the latest weird thing we're seeing in and around D.C. -- different stores and businesses have resorted to plenty of strange policies and tactics in these uncertain times. Looks like mail carriers are getting on the "let's try anything" bandwagon too.

Ben Simmons is taking a page straight out of Stephen Stills' songbook ... without Kendall Jenner by his side during quarantine, he's turning to the next best thing. Woof!

The Philadelphia 76ers point guard posted a series of cute photos Saturday showing himself seated in what looks to be a backyard right next to his dog, a Cane Corso named Bane Maximos Simmons ... which Ben lovingly refers to as his quarantine buddy.

No mention of his girlfriend, Kendall, here, unfortunately. She's been locked down herself at her own crib, and it sounds like she's missing her human pals right about now too.

Of course, Ben and Kenall have dated on and off since 2018 -- and were even shacking up together in a $25k/month rental home a couple years back too. It's unclear if they're still living in the same pad at the moment, but it doesn't appear so from the looks of it.

Chris D'Elia has a wild tale that's almost too funny to believe ... a local cashier hooked him up with toilet paper 'cause of his celebrity, treating perforation like precious pounds of pot.

The comedian took to Instagram Saturday with his story, telling his followers that he casually strolled into an L.A.-area store -- didn't say which one -- and asked the dude at the front if they had any toilet paper in stock ... a question that's become all too common these days.

Chris says the guy started acting super shady, and then led him to the back of the store ... where he claims he emerged with a 24-pack of top-notch TP, which was clearly being hidden/hoarded from the general public. The guy allegedly told Chris he was a big fan.

Not just that ... but Chris says the fella gave him the whole pack for free -- how 'bout that?!? As CD puts it ... he'll be sh***ing pretty for weeks to come. Hooray!!!

Chris says he knew his comedy would pay off at some point, and it sounds like it has during these most trying of times. And, as far as toilet paper becoming just as coveted as drugs ... something like this has been predicted before by the great Robin Williams.

People say the coronavirus pandemic has had a seismic impact on our way of life -- and they're 1,000% right ... because seismologists are noticing how damn quiet it's gotten.

A geologist and seismologist named Thomas Lecocq, who works at an observatory in Brussels, Belgium, has noted the change in the vibrations he and his colleagues were recording from the Earth's surface -- saying they've reduced significantly since mid-March.

Of course, that's when most everyone else outside of China -- which was already grappling with the outbreak since at least February, if not sooner -- started implementing stay-at-home orders, quarantining guidelines, and in some cases ... nationwide mandatory lockdowns.

The Belgium study goes on to say vibrations in that immediate area caused by human activity has fallen by at least a third in recent weeks, which means people aren't driving on the roads, walking about ... or cranking their machines nearly as much as they normally do.

Needless to say, that same finding is probably being seen around other parts of the world, including here in the U.S., where we're always zooming around, especially on the coasts.

It's fascinating -- the seismologists in Brussels say the phenomenon is actually helping them pay more close attention to important stuff ... like incoming earthquakes, exact aftershock locations, oceanic noise and tectonic plate shifts they usually couldn't easily detect.

Former UFC Middleweight Champ and current analyst Michael Bisping went ham on a fellow MMA fighter, calling him "a f***ing absolute moron" for minimizing the danger of the coronavirus.

Bisping just posted a blistering attack on the fighter known as Mind of the Warrior, who tweeted, "The solution is worse then [sic] the disease. Wake up dude."

Of course, Mind of the Warrior was parroting what Trump said recently ... it's why for a few days he was recklessly trying to re-open the country in a week ... which would have all but made economic ruin a certainly.

Bisping went wild, saying, "You are a f***ing absolute moron. Look around, people are dying at an alarming rate. You and people with your STUPID view are the problem. You selfish piece of s**t. I've wanted to say this to many people for a while."

A British actor known for playing Jesus in various films has the coronavirus and is extremely upset his country's quarantining rules are putting people at extreme risk.

Adam Bond is in a Malaysian hospital ... he's been there for weeks. Adam was filming his 7th movie in which he plays Jesus.

He must have felt something, because last month he asked to be tested, but he was refused. Adam persisted, and he says producers paid for a private test that came back positive. He was hospitalized, and he's going on 20-days in the facility.

Adam is clear ... he says if he didn't get tested he would have interacted with scores of people while shooting the movie, flown home and possibly infected people on the plane, and then, scariest of all, he has a flatmate with cancer and believes they would have died.

But Adam is most upset with the UK's policy of quarantining for 7 days. He's been in the hospital for 19 days with no clear end in sight.

Getting your food in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic is getting downright robotic.

There's been a seismic shift in interest in self-delivering robots in the last few weeks. Serve -- a self-delivery robot for Postmates -- has been out and about delivering grub to hungry customers.

Postmates introduced Serve last December, and there's obvious new-found interest in the contraption. For now, they're meant to travel only short distances.

BTW ... check out the vid ... it looks like the robot's eyes blink at 10 seconds and then again at 21 seconds.

This little doggy does a double-take when it sees the newfangled machine tooling down the street with purpose.

As for cool features ... Serve can carry 50 lbs of food and it travels 30 miles on a single charge.

Serve communicates with dynamic lighting in the eyes ... a light ring on top signals movement, like a change in direction.

BTW ... Serve's not the only game in town. Starship Technologies created a delivery robot that is already making the rounds in the U.K.

Ok ... it was inevitable, right? Newborn twins have just been named ... Covid and Corona.

Preeti Verma gave birth to a boy (Covid) and a girl (Corona) and decided to name the twins after the virus, because they wanted "to spread happiness, not fear" ... the proud papa, Vimay Verma, tells TMZ.

The babies were born March 27th at the Ambedkar Memorial Hospital in Raipur, India. The mother told a newspaper in India that she had difficulty during the delivery so she and her husband wanted to make it "memorable." That they did.

Some people were shocked by the choices, but the couple vows they will not change the names of their newborns.

Masks alone don't cut it for this dude ... because he ventured out onto the mean streets of Manchester dressed as a "Star Wars" Stormtrooper!!!

It's understandable -- people in England are battling the virus like everyone else -- and this guy was taking no chances as he was taking his pooch for a walk.

It's amusing and at the same time really scary ... hard to know if he's just jk'ing or if he's genuinely freaked out that a droplet or a sneeze could do him in.

One thing you can say for sure ... Americans are united in their love and appreciation for the first responders, hospital doctors and nurses who are risking their lives to save others, and New Yorkers showed their emotions Friday night at eardrum-shattering levels.

NYC residents came out in force at around 7 PM and started a metal drumbeat ... banging pots and pans as they stood on their balconies or by their windows to show how they feel about their hospital heroes.

It's becoming a nightly tradition and, appropriately, it's getting louder and louder by the night.

The new movement, #ClapBecauseWeCare, has seen first responders in the city applauded and serenaded to thank them.