One child in the classroom is given a stack of stickers of a little cartoon version of a virus. Maybe the virus cartoon character has a thermometer in its mouth and an ice bag on its head making it look like it's sick. Probably don't want to make to too scary. When a student gets a pile of stickers, they put one on their forehead indicating they've caught the bug.

This first child puts a sticker on his forehead, then splits the stack in two and shakes hands with two kids. He hands each half the pile afterwords. Then those two kids, after putting a sticker on their foreheads split their piles and give them to 4 kids who repeat the process until everybody has a sticker on their forehead.

This shows how quickly everybody can get infected.

If you want to make the model more realistic, and you have a lot more kids, you can have each kid continue handing out stickers which is the way it would really work.

Makes learning about how sickness spreads, a pretty important lesson, kind of fun.

Now if you wanted to give them an advanced lesson, they can give the stickers out to 3 kids and see how much faster it spreads by comparison. Have a nastier looking bug for that one. Maybe even have the various bugs feature a 2 or a 3.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2020

Would it not be useful to put real virus on the stickers, to add to the realism of the simulation ?

Or at least something to cause an unpleasant rash, or vomiting... norovirus is very contagious...
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2020


"EVERYBODY HAS COOTIES !!!!"
-- FlyingToaster, Mar 29 2020


I like that!

Call them cooties, not coronaviruses.
-- doctorremulac3, Mar 29 2020


Well, you could use the paper crowns* from christmas crackers instead of stickers.

You could bundle cheery jokes with them like "Have you heard about the Irishman who set fire to his Toyota because he was frightened of Corollavirus ?" and "You thought you'd get treatment ? WRONG ! "

*crowns... coronet... coronavirus... get it ? Oh, you have ...
-- 8th of 7, Mar 29 2020


If ick is wanted, then a gooey, brightly coloured hand sanitizer might give the thrill factor. At least some smeary splotches will be sterile and tracing will be easy.
-- wjt, Mar 30 2020


But where, then, is the needless suffering and misery ?
-- 8th of 7, Mar 30 2020


^ Old style lick-able stickers then.
-- wjt, Mar 31 2020



random, halfbakery