I'm not Thomas Paine, but it's time for some common sense

The world is in the midst of an illness outbreak of epical proportions. Sickness has suddenly gone viral and all of us are scrambling to cope.

Kids are staying home from school, March Madness and the two college world series (baseball and softball) have been cancelled. Major League Baseball has delayed the start of the regular season by two weeks and it is possible the delay could be extended longer. Travel could become severely limited in the coming weeks.

It reads like something out of one of Tom Clancy’s books. Heck, it happened in one of his books.

Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic announced this week that it can test up to 500 people a day for the COVID-19 virus and it expects to be able to test 1,000 people a day within a couple of weeks. The results should be available within eight hours, the clinic said. If that can be done in northeastern Ohio, you would hope the same performance can be replicated in other parts of the country.

It is in situations like these that Americans have typically shown their mettle and that is what we must do now. The virus can’t be defeated with a magic medicine. It spreads to all of us through all of us and like it or not, we are over populated. That population density is a serious problem now because the virus spreads from one person to another only when people are together. In high population areas, we are always together.

So use common sense for the next few months, no matter where you live. Limit your travel, try to avoid crowds and wash your hands frequently. If you can work from home, do so. Spend your time with the great indoors and remember to sneeze or cough into your elbow.

Fill out your 2020 Census document online and send it in. Get extra sleep if you can, watch a little extra television. Read to your kids or play boardgames with them. If you have someone in your home with a compromised immune system, such as a cancer survivor, limit your exposure risk as much as you limit theirs.

Read a book (you can order mine, That Bloody Hill: Hilliard’s Legion at Chickamauga, through my publisher, McFarland & Company, Inc) or write one. Do plenty of stretching, whether at work or at home, and try to follow a more healthy lifestyle.

We are in this thing together and the only way we can slow the spread of the virus is by sticking apart as much as possible.

Good luck, everybody. Thanks for reading.