Wash your hands.

Stay home from work when you're sick.

Don't visit others when you're ill.

This is all common sense when you're sick, right?

While for many these three statements are common sense, for others it took a nasty flu virus to reinforce what they already know.

On Oct. 24 President Barack Obama declared swine flu a "national emergency," but well before that young people around the world were dying from the virus.

True, people die every year from the "regular" flu. What sets the H1N1 virus apart from those strains is, for some reason, those who are dying of the swine flu are generally younger. They don't have immune systems that are compromised, and generally are healthy. The deaths attributed to the seasonal flu are usually in the elderly or immune-compromised.

But these are just generalizations and anyone can come down with either virus at any time.

It took the H1N1 pandemic to prod people into doing things they should have been doing all along - staying home from school and work when ill, washing hands frequently and just generally taking precautions to stay healthy.

Neither virus - H1N1 nor the seasonal flu - has hit the Lebanon Community School District yet. Maybe that should be credited to the precautions district staff, students and parents are taking.

We hope employers are following suit and send their sick workers home to recover and lessen their exposure to the rest of the area.

People get sick, but if as a community we follow common sense practices we can help curb the spread of both viruses.