Headlines from different publications show similarities of COVID-19 to the Spanish flu in 1918. (Photo compiled from Christine McKelvie’s book “Is There a Hospital in This Place? A Century of Hospital Care in Steamboat Springs”) STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — To keep from getting sick, Routt County residents were advised to avoid people with colds, cover their mouths and noses when coughing and sneezing, and stay home if sick, according to Christine McKelvie’s book, “Is There a Hospital in This Place? A Century of Hospital Care in Steamboat Springs.” Those directives might sound familiar having become a sort of mantra in the current COVID-19 pandemic. But the orders referenced by McKelvie’s book were given in October 1918, just as the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic began to hit the Yampa Valley.