
Often during this Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve thought about my mother who was born in 1914 and my dad who was born in 1916. They were two young children when the Spanish Flu pandemic hit in 1918 and 1919. If you aren’t familiar, there were three waves of the Spanish Flu and, in the United States, 675,000 people died from it. I’m amazed that my future parents made it through those rough years.
Can you imagine how things were back then? Doctors and scientists didn’t even know about viruses because they weren’t discovered until the 1930s. Plus, think about the communication in those days. Unlike those of us working through Covid-19, they had no Twitter, no Zoom, no Internet and no smart phones. In those days, people relied on newspapers, the telegraph and town gossip. Most people had no clue what was going on. The medical profession did know about microbes so they understood the importance of wearing a mask around other people but that’s pretty much where their knowledge ended.
Still, as of this writing, nearly 160,000 souls have succumbed to the coronavirus in the US. While that’s just a little under 1/4 of those who lost their lives during the Spanish Flu, that’s still too high a number.
Our job now, though, is to hopefully prevent what happened during the Spanish Flu from repeating – we don’t need three waves of Covid-19. Of course, you already know some of the ways we can use to stop that from happening: social distancing, wearing masks, not touching your face with your hands, staying home when you’re under the weather, proper hand washing, sterilizing surfaces, etc.
However, I’m wondering how many of you are thinking about one of our communication devices – smart phones and how it relates to the coronavirus. Do you think about how often we use our phones? Do you consider how much time our phones spend near our face, our nose, our mouth? Has it occurred to you how your phone can easily be a carrier of germs? Well, I’ve thought about those things and I’ve created a video explaining how to disinfect your phone. I strongly urge you to take 5 minutes and watch the video.
I never thought about this, it is a great idea. Thanks for sharing, I always look forward to these posts.
Thanks, Ernie!