Ah, the lovely COVID-19. As countries and cities are locking down, my kids are going to have an extended spring break here in Colorado. As of right now, there are 186 confirmed cases in Colorado and 2 deaths. In the US it’s 6,539 (116 deaths) and globally 206,845 cases with 8,272 deaths as of the morning of March 18th.

Some states have already closed schools through the end of the school year, which I hope doesn’t happen here because my MS rattled brain and homeschooling 2 kids doesn’t sound like an easy or fun challenge.

So many people are panic purchasing that the stores can barely keep the shelves stocked. The only upside to MS at this moment is that I forget what I have in the cabinets so shelf stable foods are not really an issue at our house. They can’t seem to keep ground beef or chicken stocked fast enough at this time but we should be ok for a bit.

All the news isn’t helping the issue, causing chaos and panic. Here’s the thing we need to remember. Our grandparents and great grandparents lived through worse than this. They lived in a time where antibiotics didn’t even exist (1940s is when they began to be used)!  They lived in an era of the World War 1, Spanish Flu, World War 2 and the depression. My great grandmother lived through ALL of these things.

In 1918 (during WWI) the Spanish Flu infected 500 MILLION people in the world. That was 1/3 of the world population at the time. Out of 500 Million there were an estimated 20-50 Million deaths, 675,000 in the states. There was no medicine or vaccine for this virus that we hadn’t seen the likes of before. Schools and businesses closed and people were ordered to wear masks. While we will never know the exact number of cases and deaths for the Spanish flu because medical record keeping wasn’t done during the time. The Spanish flu spread through the world for nearly 2 years.

In our life, we have survived 9-11, SARs, the H1N1 pandemic and more and now over 100 years later COVID-19. We can do this, medicine is so much more advanced now than it was 100 years ago.

The 2009 H1N1 virus was estimated by the CDC to infect 60.8 MILLION people in the US and 274,304 of those patients were hospitalized and 12,469 people died. Global impact of H1N1 is estimated to have caused between 151,700 and 575,400 deaths. H1N1 spread through 168 countries world wide, this article comparing H1N1 and Corona virus from February indicates only 44 countries were impacted by COVID-19 at that time. This site indicates there are currently 110 countries with cases of this virus.

My point is, we did this 11 years ago, how we forget in the midst of panic that we are strong. Yes, COVID-19 can be very serious, it can also just be an inconvenience depending on the patient.

15 days ago I had my chemotherapy infusion that kills all the cells in my body that can potentially become the cells that kill viruses. Does this virus worry me? The answer to that is yes, but that is because right now, my immune system is currently at it’s lowest. If I get this, it may be very serious. I have also already had the flu this year (pre-infusion).

How do you get through this? Patience, a lot of it. Wash your freaking hands! How is it that people don’t have this skill down in 2020, you’re not toddlers! Limit contact with people if you have a compromised immune system, your immediate family should too. If you have allergies like I do, know your symptoms. We have three HUGE dogs at our house and about two years ago I found out I am now moderately allergic to dogs. So I live in a constant state of congestion and itchy eyes when I am home.

People can be contagious before their symptoms appear (just like the regular flu) so for the sake of everyone’s sanity practice good hygiene and if you have cold like symptoms and don’t know you should be coughing or sneezing into your elbow and not your hands or the air please review this site.

 

 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/etiquette/coughing_sneezing.html