Flattening the Curve

There is a lot of great health information and a whole of hype going around today about this teeny weeny virus that quite literally has received global attention. War zones and their devastation seem not to exist. People left without home and often family streaming country to country to get away from governmental corruption has vanished. Instead our focus has swung to cruise ships and international travel, large gatherings for sports, other entertainment events and political or educational conventions. Even TV talk shows with audiences have put audiences on hold! 

This has not been just today, but has been building as status reports rain on us from various levels of government and the media. I’ve received at least four or five emailed memos from various companies regarding the details of their preventative strategies. Across the board they appear to be in lock step. ‘Flattening the curve’ was the most important phrase I heard this morning. That from a Canadian medical official in Ottawa. Listening and reading other reports, that phrase has often been used to explain why we close so many gatherings, put conditions on returning from international locales, or using good hand and facial hygiene. It all has the potential to strike paralyzing fear in anyone’s heart. 

My thoughts have often turned to Florence Nightingale in this past week. A woman famous for establishing nursing schools, bringing hygiene into hospitals and surgeons and being a strong, no nonsense woman in the late 1800’s. And here we are in 2020, back to hand washing and good hygiene. Our hospitals, nursing homes and clinics have very slowly reduced staffing at all levels so that they all need ramping up, starting with those wonderful people that clean, the nursing staff that care for the sick and all the auxiliary workers. As one friend put it yesterday on a Facebook post, all these staff members are exposed to innumerable infectious diseases on a daily basis. How would Florence Nightingale have managed us all as we scurry about being afraid, over worked and understaffed? Afraid that we’ll not have enough, certain that someone else will give us this virus that will cause our death and scrambling for our turn to be tested and treated.

We are an abundant country. Yes, we have homeless people and abject poverty here in our land. Those folks have had to fend for themselves for years while we enjoy the comforts of a home. So now, the tables have turned. The spectre of not having enough stares us in the face, bombards our ears each morning when we watch or listen to new reports. In grocery stores especially there is a franticness of customers with heads down, carts full that is not typical even on a Saturday! I won’t pretend to know what situations others are in, even as I see one more 24 pack of toilet paper being carried down the street. The strategies that are outlined for us all by our officials are good, common sense strategies to help us to flatten the curve of transmission of Covid19. They are strategies similar to those that Florence Nightingale established 400 years ago and probably would have quite briskly used them today. 

"I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words, 

they ought all to be distilled into actions

 and into actions which bring results."

~ Florence Nightingale

Basics for Flattening the Curve

1. Wash your hands.
2. Don’t touch your face or eyes.
3. Learn social distancing.
4. Use common sense and kindness.
5. Be creative with all that you own.
6. Know that you have and are enough.