Studying The 1918 Spanish Flu- Comparing to Covid-19-Originally published 3-28-20

hello everyone! I hope people continue to exercise caution, common sense, and good hygiene during this moment in time. It is vital so we can all get past this crisis and have life go back to normal. If you can work from home, now is the time to seize that opportunity and make the best of a tough situation. This is the time in our lives where we try to read books we have not read, watch movies we have not taken time to watch, pursue hobbies we never took time to chase, and smash some goals. So far we have had no interruptions with our power or internet. I am grateful for those creature comforts while in isolation. I try to not watch the news all day long. The constant updates of bad news is not healthy to be immersed in 24/7 or longer than the time needed to review the updates. It is an odd time in life where you need to be aware yet you also need to protect yourself from diving into depths of paranoia due to the tough time at hand. While in NYC, we feel like we are being hit the absolute hardest with this Covid-19 crisis. Watching the body count rise when it is in your "back yard" is a much harder pill to swallow that if it was thousands of miles away. I spoke with my sister out in Oregon last night and they feel the walls are closing in with requirement of having to stay home. However, she feels relieved because any local cases are minimal. She feels nervous for me because she watches the news and is worried for me since we are enduring the bulk of the cases here in NYC. For a period of a few weeks, the trains were empty so it felt somewhat safe to commute to the city. The streets of Manhattan are very light of people as well. Now that the trains have been reduced to weekend or holiday schedules, people are forced to be closer together than the required social distancing. This newly reduced train schedule is something that is now frustrating that we are forced to endure to get back and forth to different places. I have friends on Facebook sharing the newly crowded subway car photos. I did hear that the bike rentals are more reasonable during this time period to aid with the need to get from place to place throughout NYC. I decided to watch some YouTube documentaries on the 1918 Spanish Flu that ravaged the world during WW I. In order to understand the magnitude of the current crisis, we need to understand the conditions and actions the people before us took during the past global pandemics. After reviewing some documentaries, it is clear that we are responding today a lot swifter and with more advanced processes and tools than what they had over 100 years ago. The government bodies, during the 1918 Spanish Flu era, chose to keep a lid on the information and were slow to react to the news of the spread of the disease. This same mode of slow and secretive action was how the Chinese government, specifically the city of Wuhan, handled affairs during the initial phase of the virus outburst. It is alarming to see footage of the Chinese government welding doors of families who have been afflicted with the virus during the apex of the outbreak. Just when you feel outraged with the treatment of people in modern times, watching the conditions of the 1918 Spanish Flu era was even more cringe worthy to watch the documentary. During the 1918 Spanish Flu era, the conditions of homes were a lot dirtier and rougher than they are today. These poor conditions didn't help to contain the disease spread amongst families at all. They shared outhouses amongst some neighbors and they didn't have a proper means of disposing waste water. People who worked long hours often shared beds with people for 7-8 hours at a time. They never changed the sheets for each weary worker that was sleeping on the beds either. The sick soldiers, positioned around the globe, were living and fighting in trenches. These trenches were seeping with decaying corpses, fecal matter, and diseases when the rain waters flooded the trenches. As the disease progressed, the bodies were stacked up with no one to bury them. Eventually, mass graves were dug to handle the diseased folks. They had no means of attempting to sanitize the space to contain the spread either. War soldiers were unknowingly spreading the disease amongst their family and society in between from their journey from the trek home from the trenches or traveling military base to base. The globe was absolutely ravaged by the time they figured out that self quarantining was a process they must use. Surprisingly enough, San Francisco was not as hard hit on the first wave because to took swift action to impose isolation on the city. They did get hit on the second wave of the virus since they thought the virus was over when numbers of sick people initially declined to near zero levels. Watching these documentaries make me grateful for the better conditions we have as a modern society. Remember, when you are home and in need of a laugh, I am here to help distract you. The goal is to spread some humor to help us get past this crisis together. I often use humor as a tool to get past the most challenging times in my life path. Seek out some distractions and this too shall pass for all of us. This week, I found this super humorous comedian, named Josh Sneed, on YouTube where I was laughing so much, my sides almost split and I had a hernia. Here is a clip that I watched that you may or may not appreciate: Be safe and speak with you next time! Cheers! Leslie M. Jasper

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