Chris Parnell is a normcore comedy assassin. After a career in improv, two stints on Saturday Night Live, and countless roles on sitcoms like 30 Rock and animated shows like Rick and Morty, Parnell has perfected the art of using his extremely average appearance — and voice — to deliver disarmingly strange, ridiculous and deadpan comedy. Few are better at making the act of looking like a relatively normal dude and keeping a straight face so funny (“the Chronic — what — cles of Narnia!”).

This is why, as Jerry Smith, Parnell is an essential part of what makes Rick and Morty work. His ability to adopt an aw-shucks affectation even as he bears witness to some of the most bizarre things committed to animation makes him one of the most endearing aspects of the show.

Recently, Parnell spoke with The Verge in a phone call from Los Angeles, where the actor is currently self-quarantined with his family, for a conversation about Jerry’s quarantine odds, Rick and Morty fans, and what he’s up to during isolation.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Verge: Rick and Morty often has an extremely long break between seasons, what’s it been like coming back to Jerry at such an irregular pace?

Chris Parnell: You know, every time that I do it after it’s been a long break, I have to find it a little bit, but the voice is not that different than my voice and it’s just sort of tapping into Jerry. But the writing is so good, it’s so much of joy on the page and what the writers create so that it’s really just kind of trying to bring that to life. As long as I’m true to that and being present while I’m recording and all that, it’s not too challenging to get back into Jerry.

Is there anything about animation that you find interesting or particularly fun to do as far as comedy goes?

Pretty much everything that I do is just solo record sessions, which I enjoy. The hardest thing I think is just remembering to really be present and try to act it well and not just kind of say the lines. So there’s a fair bit of visualization going on in my head and trying to sort of put myself in that place and see it. And it’s very freeing in that there’s no camera on me, so it doesn’t matter what I’m doing with my hands and arms and the way I’m gesticulating or whatever, which I do a fair bit of when I record voiceover. So you’re really just taking all of this energy and funneling it through your voice without being able to see anything which you’re doing physically. Although, obviously, what I do physically with my face and my body is going to affect how my voice sounds.

But yeah, I mean, I feel lucky that I get to do both things. Both the live action and the animated stuff. Obviously, these days it tends to be mostly the animation, but I get to do enough guest star appearances on sitcoms or the occasional movie part or things like that. I get to have that one-on-one interaction with other actors actually with us looking at each other and saying things to each other, so that’s very nice to get to do both.

Would you do a character like Jerry in live action?

Would I? Sure. I mean, I probably have at some level. I mean, I’ve certainly done a lot of characters that are not completely dissimilar to Jerry.

Is there anything that you’ve had to say as Jerry that made you do a double take?

I don’t think so, honestly. Not to be Mr. Tough Guy, but when you’ve had a background doing The Groundlings like I have and once you do live improv shows and stuff like that, there’s really… almost anything goes. And then Saturday Night Live. I mean, people who have been a part of comedy for an extended period of time, as I’ve been fortunate enough to be, for the vast majority of us anyway, there’s not really much that shocks us. Part of doing comedy is doing things that are shocking and surprising and ridiculous, so I don’t know I’ve ever actually encountered anything with Jerry that I was like, “Oh boy. Wow.”

Do you have a sense of how people react to Jerry? Do you interact with fans a lot?

I don’t interact with fans a lot mainly because I’m not on social media, and the only real time for that interaction is at the occasional convention, like Comic-Con or whatever that Adult Swim will send us to. And that’s awesome and that’s really fun and that’s a great time to get to see the crowd react to the screening of an episode or in doing a panel and hearing their questions, so it becomes tangible in a way that it’s not usually.

But I actually find it freeing to not have to try to do something for an immediate audience reaction and just sort of hope that what I’m doing is funny or whatever it’s supposed to be. And once it’s all put together and animated — obviously, the animation is a big part of it — that people will react in a good way and laugh at [Jerry]. I don’t mind not having that immediate reaction, in a strange way.

You mentioned that you’re not on social media, so do you know what Rick and Morty fans are like online? Because they have a bit of a rep.

I don’t, really. I mean, occasionally I’ll hear that somebody is being nasty or misogynistic or something, but I don’t… other than the broad colors like that. I know that’s very much the minority, but yeah, I don’t have a huge sense of what it’s like.

You also have people who just run with the most oddball parts of the show, like Pickle Rick. Pickle Rick is a huge thing online.

Yeah? I believe that.

Does any of this surprise you a little bit? What’s your take on the show?

Well, Rick is fairly amoral. He makes a lot of questionable or outright terrible choices, so I guess there’s going to be people that relate to that in a very particular way and sort of revel in that.

Any time people get really excited and, dare I say, rabid about something, there’s probably going to be some nastiness involved — and also just inherent in, obviously, social media and people communicating without having to be looking at somebody face to face. Then maybe just the nihilistic nature of Rick and Morty and the darkness of it sort of brings something extra out of some of the fans.

Does your family talk to you about your role on the show? Do they like Jerry?

My sons are six and three, so they don’t watch Rick and Morty, even though they do have some of the plushies and little hard plastic figurines. I mean, my six-year-old knows who Mr. Poopy Butthole is, you know? Other than watching the show with my wife and the bit of feedback I get from her, but we don’t really take the show apart or anything. I’m not sure if my sister watches it. My parents definitely don’t.

What would you think it would be like to deal with this whole isolation, pandemic situation with Jerry if he were in this position?

Well, I think Jerry would actually do pretty well with it. I think he would just find some little projects to engage himself with and focus on those and feel proud of his little victories he might have. I know he’s going to be taking up, on some level, beekeeping in these upcoming episodes. So yeah, I don’t think it would be too rough on Jerry.

What about you, what are you up to? Do you have a favorite show right now? Reading anything good?

Well, I’m on the fourth book of the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons. I don’t know if you know that at all, but it’s a great, great science fiction series. I mean, just extraordinary. So I’m making my way through the fourth and last book of that series, and then my wife and I, we have to find shows that we both want to watch at night after the kids are in bed. We love John Oliver, like so many people do. We love Bill Maher and Samantha Bee, we’re fans of hers, and we also watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and New York. My wife turned me on to those shows back many years ago, and so, although I never thought I’d be watching reality TV, I do. I am now invested slightly in the lives of those women.

It’s interesting!

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it I cannot watch. Like, I have no interest in The Bachelor or certain shows where I just feel like people are not particularly interesting, but yeah. And then lately my wife’s been having these sort of meetups with some of the other ladies in our neighborhood where they’ll just sit out on the street in lawn chairs and keep their distance, their social distance, and chat. But I’m still catching up with this show, Into the Badlands.

Oh, that show rules.

Right? I’ve still got a couple more episodes of, what, season 3, I guess? But yeah, that’s a little treat.

18- year-old Tia decided not to return to her family house to isolate during the coronavirus lockdown.

Rather, she is among only a few volunteers who have actually remained in Calais to work at the migrant camps.

Speaking With Submit on 4, she states there’s not enough space for migrants to practice social distancing, and hygiene centers are poor.

But the Calais local government state they’re finding appropriate alternative shelter for the migrants, while those staying in the camps have access to soap, water and showers.

Produced and Modified by: Eleanor Layhe

Executive Producer: Kimberley Rowell

If you’re a parent of any number of kids, opportunities are great you’re worried about the effect this time in seclusion is having on them. Moms and dads of kids with special requirements are < a data-ga= "[["Embedded Url","Internal link","https://offspring.lifehacker.com/how-to-homeschool-kids-with-special-needs-during-the-pa-1842593939",{"metric25":1}]] href=" https://offspring.lifehacker.com/how-to-homeschool-kids-with-special-needs-during-the-pa-1842593939" > struggling to get the services their kids normally count on. Parents of numerous kids are questioning when the< a data-ga="[["Embedded Url","Internal link","https://offspring.lifehacker.com/how-to-manage-sibling-arguments-while-youre-stuck-at-ho-1842625422",{"metric25":1}]] href=" https://offspring.lifehacker.com/how-to-manage-sibling-arguments-while-youre-stuck-at-ho-1842625422" > unlimited sibling arguments will officially drive the entire family completely bonkers. And parents of only kids may be fretted about the absence of an integrated buddy in their kid’s life.

As the parent of an only kid myself, this was amongst my first issues when schools shut down and it rapidly became apparent that even playdates with another child were no longer a safe alternative. And over the past 6 weeks, my son’s “just” status– while undoubtedly probably making pandemic parenting a lot easier for me than for numerous others– has continued to rank with my biggest concerns for how he will fare during this time.

However so far? He’s been fine. Or a minimum of as great as one might hope or expect. And I have every reason to logically believe that he will continue to be fine. Which your only kids will be fine, too. And here’s why:

Only children are utilized to being only children

Our only kids didn’t become only children the day the coronavirus lockdown hit your state. These are amazing times, however they don’t alter the reality that only kids have, at least in most cases, always been only kids. You might be wringing your hands over whether they’re lonesome– and yes, they most likely are missing their buddies right now. However they are also used to being the only kid in the house.

They’re most likely pretty skilled at playing on their own and entertaining themselves. And although they probably want they could get the hell out of your home as much (if not more) than you want them to, absolutely nothing about the structure of your family has actually changed; that corresponds.

They can still be social

What my child wouldn’t give right now for one Nerf gun battle with his buddy or one soccer practice with his colleagues. He’s a really social kid, and up previously, no weekend was total without him investing at least some in person time with good friends. It’s the connection he yearns for, not necessarily the physical distance.

We have actually found ways to satisfy his need for connection in other ways– by seeing his schoolmates on Zoom, by FaceTiming with good friends during afternoon Minecraft marathons and by composing letters to pen buddies. He has taken occasional bike flights with a friend (yes, and moms and dads, who ensure they preserve proper physical distance from one another). Hell, we have actually even stood on one corner of the street while a buddy based on the other corner as they yell-chatted to each other.

For a 9-year-old, this is all fairly simple to do. But what about younger kids who can’t chat and play games with their friends on a tablet with the very same ease or efficiency? There is no requirement to stress about them, either, Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a teacher of psychology at Temple University, informed the < a data-ga ="[["Embedded Url","External link","https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/parenting/only-child-virus-quarantine.html",{"metric25":1}]] href=" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/ parenting/only-child-virus -quarantine.html" rel=" noopener noreferrer" target=" _ blank" > New York Times :

” The important things they are missing out on is this navigation and negotiation with the social world. Is it important? Absolutely. Is it going to be destructive? Never. “She stated it would take years for children to experience enduring damage from the current shelter-at-home practices. “They still reside in a social world. That social world has us as a part of it. We are their guides and take a trip representatives. I don’t see it as harming them,” she stated.

And, Hirsh-Pasek stated, video conferencing with enjoyed ones or buddies is still helpful for young children and preschoolers because it assists enhance the art of communication and language development in such a way that enjoying a TV program does not.

They are getting more of your attention

The people our kids require most right now? That’s us, their moms and dads. They need an environment that is as calm and anxiety-free as possible, and we’re the very best individuals to supply that for them– as challenging as that may be for us today. As much as we’re able, we can use this time in your home to connect with them. As Rebecca Onion writes for < a data-ga="[["Embedded Url","External link","https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/coronavirus-isolation-loneliness-children-parenting.html",{"metric25":1}]] href=" https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/ coronavirus-isolation-loneliness-children-parenting. html" rel=" noopener noreferrer" target= "_ blank" > Slate:

The No. 1 most important thing to your child’s sense of wellness right now, a variety of experts I interviewed wanted to highlight, is that you remain as stable as you can. Kids are, as Yale psychologist Dylan Gee composed in an e-mail, “quite observant and sensitive” to parents’ stress. “The most crucial protective aspect that a kid can have in a demanding scenario is a loving, helpful, constant caretaker,” Gee, who has actually studied the way caretakers help kids manage their own stress, mentioned. “In that sense, kids are with the very people they require the most throughout a stressful time.”

They require you And the very reality that there is just one of them may suggest they’ll get more of you than they otherwise would. In that regard, the numbers work in their favor: You can block out time for routine connection, whether that’s tossing the ball in the yard, choosing day-to-day walks the area or finding out how to play chess together.

They will be fine

The undeniable fact is that we are in uncharted territory here. There is no chance for us to understand with any sort of certainty what the longterm effects of this type of isolation will be for our kids– or us, for that matter.

But much like the children who are arguing with brother or sisters over who gets to choose the motion picture every night, we have every reason to think that if we offer our only kids with constant opportunities for connection and a safe and loving environment, they will be fine.

Fulfill the most intelligent parents on Earth! Join our < a data-ga ="[["Embedded Url","External link","https://www.facebook.com/groups/2018785615043946/",{"metric25":1}]] href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/2018785615043946/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target =" _ blank" > parenting Facebook group

I first heard this theory back in February from a family member: “What if that awful cold I had this winter was actually COVID-19?” Unlikely, of course, but an interesting what if. But then I started hearing it from more and more people, and now it seems everybody on Facebook is convinced they have already had the coronavirus, they’re immune, it’s fine to go out, and heck we’ve probably all had it by now.

What a wonderful relief that would be. It would mean we’re already through the worst of the epidemic. Its death toll, however large, would be in our past. And perhaps, as the spring flowers emerge, we can emerge from hiding as well, a dark winter of disease behind us.

That cheery conclusion should be your first hint that this theory is based more on wishful thinking than fact. The idea just doesn’t add up, so let’s talk about why.

Check where the story is coming from

First, and most importantly, this theory is not coming from epidemiologists. (Remember, when you have a question about the pandemic, look for the people who are subject matter experts, not just whoever says what you want to believe.)

Journalist Jane Hu traces the recent explosion in these rumors to an article that conflated a study on COVID-19 immunity with some unrelated speculation from a military historian. Yes, there are efforts to study how many people may have already gained immunity to the coronavirus, but they’re being done with the understanding that we are still at the beginning of the virus’s journey across the population. For comparison, in an area of Germany that was particularly hard hit by the COVID-19, with over 19,0o0 cases, a recent study revealed that just 14% of the population is now immune.

There is a grain of truth to the rumor that the virus was circulating in secret: Many of the scientists researching the spread of this epidemic do, in fact, think that there have been more cases than official numbers reveal. That’s because the US has been slow to roll out testing, so many people who are sick with COVID-19 have been unable to confirm whether they have the virus or not. Even so, they’re not rewriting the timeline of when the virus hit the US.

The virus itself tells us where it’s been

Coronaviruses don’t have DNA like we do, but they have something very similar, called RNA. Just like you can find out from DNA tests whether your sibling is a brother or a half-brother, scientists can analyze viral RNA to see how closely two samples of coronavirus are related to each other.

If you were to contract COVID-19 from your neighbor, your virus and theirs would be nearly identical. Compare your virus to that of a patient in another city, and it would be clearly related, but with some detectable differences. (Viruses accumulate small mutations over time; so do we, but viruses reproduce faster.)

So if you could sequence everybody’s viral RNA—or even a sampling of patients—you’d be able to draw a family tree showing how these individual examples of the coronavirus are related to each other. And since we know when and where each virus showed up in a patient, analyzing the data gives us a family tree and a timeline and a map. In fact, there is a massive global project to do exactly that, called Nextstrain. You can browse the global data here.

It shows that the earliest Chinese cases were all closely related to each other, and the cases that popped up later across the world were descendants of those. There may be gaps in our understanding of the family tree, but it has a clear origin and a clear pattern of spread. “This phylogeny shows an initial emergence in Wuhan, China, in Nov-Dec 2019 followed by sustained human-to-human transmission leading to sampled infections,” the website says.

Research from multiple groups of scientists has been consistent with this. The first two US cases, in Washington state, were closely related to each other. (That was how public health authorities figured out that the virus was spreading in the community and not just from a few recent travelers.) Two recent analyses have shown that New York City’s first cases traveled here via Europe, rather than on direct flights from China.

There may be missing data points, and it’s likely that a few people had undetected COVID cases in February or even late January. But the overall picture is pretty clear: Most of us did not.

Bottom line, we don’t need to speculate about when and where the virus got to the US. We have data.

COVID-19 can’t really masquerade as flu

The data should be enough, but let’s look at another part of this argument: that COVID-19 cases were being dismissed as colds and flu.

There’s a pretty clear flaw in this logic: COVID-19 is a new disease, and it was discovered because there were a cluster of patients in China whose symptoms and lab tests didn’t match any known respiratory illness. If cases had begun to appear in the US this past fall or early this winter, doctors here would have come to a similar conclusion.

Right now, New York is one of the US cities hardest hit by COVID-19. As the virus spread in the city, total deaths shot up. These graphics compare the death rates (from all causes) during recent weeks as compared to earlier this year and to past years. You cannot miss the surge of deaths, nor of hospital cases and ventilator usage. This virus doesn’t fly under the radar.

We didn’t have an increase in flu-like illnesses, either

Plenty of cold and flu viruses circulate every year. Could mild cases have been misdiagnosed? A few, perhaps. But not a ton.

If some colds and flus had really been COVID-19, there wouldn’t be an uptick in confirmed flu cases (because those require a positive flu test) but you would definitely expect an increase in influenza-like illness, which the CDC tracks through a project called ILINet. The long-running project surveys doctors on how many patients they saw that week, and how many had flu-like symptoms. Specifically: “ILI is defined as fever (temperature of 100°F [37.8°C] or greater) and a cough and/or a sore throat without a known cause other than influenza.” COVID-19 most commonly presents with a fever and cough.

The trends for ILI this fall and winter are similar to those of previous years. So much for that theory.

I know, you still want to believe

Think back to pre-pandemic times. Had you ever googled your symptoms, and nearly convinced yourself you had a rare disease, or cancer, or something far worse or more exotic than whatever the actual ailment turned out to be? Remember that our brains work in strange ways.

Sure, maybe you had a cold this year that was worse than what you normally get. Maybe you had even traveled before getting it. So you’re suspicious.

But, again, our brains. Do you remember that time there was a sniper in Washington, D.C. and a witness said they saw a white van near the scene of the crime? After that, other witnesses started pointing out white vans as well. But there are a lot of white vans around everywhere, all the time. Start looking for them; you’ll see a bunch. It turns out that the white vans had nothing to do with the shootings. The snipers were actually driving a blue Chevy.

In this case, colds and flu are the white vans. Millions of people have a bad cold or an undiagnosed flu every year, so plenty of people have an experience they can link in their minds to COVID-19. So while a handful of people may have had undetected coronavirus infections in February or even at the end of January, the vast majority of your friends’ bad colds this winter were probably just that: bad colds.

On Friday, Google announced it’s rolling out some new features for its video chat app. No, not that one, the other one. No, the other other one.

This latest update adds a “family mode” to Google Duo, the search giant’s mobile-friendly answer to Apple’s FaceTime and an app that you’d be forgiven for confusing with Google’s other video and text chat services, Meet and Hangouts.

Once activated via the menu icon, this mode lets you doodle on the screen and play around with effects and masks in the same vein as those you’d find on SnapChat or Facebook’s video calls. These masks and effects are also available in one-on-one calls, Duo project manager Humberto Castaneda announced in a company blog post Friday, and Google plans to roll out future additions themed to holidays and whatnot. Hopefully, they’re less disturbing than the one the Duo team cooked up for Mother’s Day, as seen below.

“We hope these features help you better connect with your nearest and dearest, and also bring a little bit of fun to your conversations,” Castaneda wrote.

Within the next few weeks, Google also plans to add web group video calls to Duo. It’s a feature already available on Google’s other video chat apps, and something tells me this new level of redundancy won’t do much to help clear up which one is which among users.

With so many people stuck inside under stay-at-home orders, Google—like many other video chat services—has been folding in a score of updates to help delineate Duo from the dozens of other video chat services available. Last month, it increased Duo’s maximum number of participants to 12 on Android and iOS to accommodate the sudden influx of users. The addition of a dedicated “family mode” seems like Google’s bid to market Duo as the family-friendly option on the market, especially with one of the most popular video conferencing platforms, Zoom, recently making headlines for a wave of security failures and disturbing troll attacks on virtual school classrooms.

In what could be read as a dig, Friday’s blog post makes a point to highlight that Duo features end-to-end encryption “as always,” a subject that’s caused Zoom significant embarrassment over the last few months after experts found the company’s encryption protocols didn’t quite stack up to its claims.