When I googled “How much water do we need to drink?” I found quite a few articles, which stated that there is an 8X8 rule, which translates to eight 8 ounces glasses, which equals about 2 liters, or half a gallon; all intended to maintain good health. As it relates to our current concern over the Corona Virus, there might be at least a few more reasons why we should use and drink more water.
While we’ve been told to avoid areas where many people congregate, sometimes it might be challenging. For example, I had to visit the DMV recently, and I took the MUNI train downtown to get there. While there are not known death cases from COVID-19 in San Francisco, we all have to be careful. The most common advice is to wash hands with soap for at least 20 seconds, and to avoid handshakes, and touching your face. Among many articles I saw online, one especially got my attention. It was in Russian; so I will give you the rough translation. According to Japanese doctors who treat COVID-19, everyone has to be sure that your mouth and throat are wet, not dry. We have to drink water every 15 minutes. Even if the virus enters your mouth, drinking water and other liquids will wash it down to the stomach, where the stomach’s digestive juices will kill it. If you do not drink enough water, the virus can penetrate through your throat into the lungs, which is very dangerous.
I do not want to diminish the potential threat of the epidemic, which, it seems, can be eliminated or at least reduced by such small measures like washing hands and drinking water, but those simple steps seem to be logical. Meanwhile, through my research, I learned there are other bigger common threats to our lives, which are not mentioned in the media, and which can also be reduced by simple measures like drinking water. When I googled “How many people died from the flu”, I found the numbers were staggering. And then when I checked “how many people died from car accidents”, the number blew my mind. You might have heard the advice to drink more water when you get common flu, but what do car accidents have to do with that? I know from personal experience that if I am tired while driving, I drink water from my reusable bottle, which is always in my car, and it helps wake me up a little, until I can safely stop.
We are exposed to a lot of misinformation and negative publicity. Nevertheless, I am sure something good is going to happen, which will save more lives in the future. Since more money is poured into research for the cure, many countries will come with up unconventional solutions through their joint efforts, which will help not only deal with COVID-19, but with other medical issues as well.
P.S. Up to 60% of human bodies are made up of water, we are surrounded by it, and I like to photograph water in its different manifestations, like these four images you see now. You can find more images of the blue water on my website mannykagan.smugmug.com.
