From meditation to memory games, former political prisoners in Myanmar are dishing out tips on surviving isolation in a pandemic as the country once severed from the world again closes its borders.

The Southeast Asian state spent nearly half a century under a paranoid, secretive junta that violently suppressed dissent, jailed its critics and locked the country off as it drove the economy into ruin.

Pro-democracy activist Bo Kyi, 56, was one of thousands jailed, spending eight years behind bars in the 1990s.

His punishment included 12 months in solitary confinement in an 8 x 12 foot (2.5 x 3.5 meter) cell furnished with just a bowl for a toilet and a mat to sleep on.

Last week he posted advice on Facebook about how to cope with isolation to his compatriots holed up at home, gripped by fears over the coronavirus in a country with a threadbare public health system.

“I wanted to make sure people don’t get too down,” Bo Kyi told AFP.