Goom Common Snese

When I was in high school, we lived in a small northwestern Iowa town. It had a daily newspaper (which I delivered when I was younger than high school), and one day the paper ran an article about how common sense was anything but common. I'm sure the article had some good points, but the reason I have any memory of it at all is that the headline was: Goom Common Snese. It became a family joke that is still tossed around occasionally, "Oh, now that's an example of goom common snese!"

When I look around at today's news...coronavirus...lockdown...stories of sickness and death...panic buying of toilet paper (?!) and other goods...I'm thinking that the world could use an enormous dollop of good common sense.

I mean, seriously people, there's a brand new virus out there that no humans have immunity to. Think about that. We are all going to get this thing, especially given that it seems to be fairly easily transmitted. Now, I get that 80%ish of people don't really have a problem at all with it, and so it seems like it shouldn't be a big deal. But let's do a little math:

Let's say that only half  the population will get infected; that's a really small amount given that no one has immunity...but let's go with half. If half of 300 million people get infected, that's 150 million people. Now, take out the 80% that don't really get sick. That leaves 30 million sick people. And if even 10% of them need hospitalization, that's 3 million hospital beds in a short amount of time.  According to a 2018 survey by the American Hospital Association, hospitals in the United States have a total of 924,100 beds, about 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. (This includes all of the beds currently occupied by patients.)

Common sense would indicate that we must increase hospital capacity and decrease the number of critically ill people at the same time. So, unless you can increase hospital capacity or in some other way help our nation in this crisis, stay home.

And hoarding? That's an issue of common sense, as well. If you buy up all of something to make a profit in a crisis, you're a thief. All the rest of us, we should be buying what we need. I saw a very common-sense guideline somewhere: "Take no more than two of anything and no more than one cart-full." 

Good advice. Since we're trying to minimize the number of times we have to go out and shop, buy what you need for a couple of weeks. Leave the rest for others. The other thing we can control is how much of something we use. Be frugal. Use cloth rags instead of paper towels. Make your own sanitizing wipes (learn how here). Be mindful in everything. It's just common sense.

And common sense can guide us in our daily quarantined behavior, too. If we spend 90% of our time reading alarming reports about the coronavirus or the economy, we will be stressed. If we check our retirement accounts each day, we will be depressed. If we fret about being bored and getting out, we may very well face arrest. 

That last one is hopefully not true and just a silly rhyme scheme on my part! But seriously, if we are constantly obsessing over our circumstances regarding this pandemic, we will not be mentally healthy and at our best. 

So common sense would dictate that we use our seclusion for our betterment somehow. Deep clean. Learn to play piano. Play with your children. Video-chat your grandkids. Play chess remotely with your brother. Write. There are many productive things to occupy our time; just use common sense. 

So in this time of COVID-19, let's spread some goom common snese.