COVID-19 may very well expose another big flaw in this country in addition to the health risk.
It probably already has and it certainly will dispel the thought that most people have ready and available access to the Internet.
Colleges, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools are closing their doors for the remainder of the school year. Many of those schools are asking students to complete their course work online.
That sounds fine and dandy if everybody had access to not only a computer, but to the Internet.
There is a big misconception that everybody has a computer at home and access to the World Wide Web. That's simply not the truth.
Away from school campuses or at work, many people don't have good access to the Internet. Why do you think so many people park outside McDonald's and What-A-Burger trying to access Wi-Fi?
We remember back when the Flomaton Public Library built its new building. The plan was to shut the library down for about two weeks to move all the computers and books from the old library to the new library. Sounded like a good plan until the librarian began receiving frantic calls from college and high school students who needed those computers to do their work.
To former Flomaton Librarian Faye Knowles, she arranged to have all the computers moved from the old library to the new over the weekend. While the library was technically closed, she was able to allow those students to have computer access on that Monday morning.
We may be in a new technical world that changes as fast as information about the COVID-19 pandemic, but we still have many people, especially in the rural areas, that don't have access to the Internet.
We know right now is not the time to address the issue because there are some major health and safety issues we need to address first.
But if there is a silver lining in this dark cloud, it may be a wakeup call to officials about Internet access.
