Changes

With the Covid-19 pandemic still raging and resurging in the United States, public health officials are encouraging people to wear masks to limit the spread of the virus. In some parts of the United States, there has been hostility to this. Similarly, the 1918 so-called Spanish Flu pandemic also faced similar hostility in places to wearing masks. Public health officials then turned to a variety of tactics to get people to wear masks then that might help encourage some to wear masks in modern epidemics.

====The 1918 Flu Pandemic and Masks====

By the autumn of 1918 in the United States, it was clear the flu pandemic was becoming out of control and that surging cases across the country required public health officials to issue direct guidance for people to wear masks. For some states, masks were seen as part of policies such as social distancing, washing hands, and general cleanliness to avoid the spread of the virus. Some cities in the Western United States, including some cities now where we see hostility to wearing masks, passed laws that required masks to be worn at all times by the autumn of 1918. This included Phoenix, San Francisco, and even Juneau, Alaska (Figure 1). Punishments ranged from fines to imprisonment in cities. While most punishments for not wearing a mask were fines, prison sentences did occur. There was one infamous incident in San Francisco, where a special officer hired by the Board of Health to enforce mask wearing, shot a man who had earlier refused to wear a mask; two bystanders even were hit by the shooting. In another case in San Francisco, at a boxing match attended by many dignitaries from the city and government, a photographer shot a photo of that night and the well known individuals present. That photograph led to many officials being shamed for not wearing masks. People who were caught not wearing masks included a congressman, a court justice, a Navy rear-admiral, a health officer and the mayor. This led to fines for these officials and public shaming, although none of these individuals were imprisoned as others had been. Nevertheless, most people or places that had rules requiring masks generally had no major issues or incidents. Only after substantial declines in deaths and infections did most of these cities that passed mask-wearing laws gradually removed the requirement about masks.<ref>For more on laws and ways cities got people to wear masks in the 1918 flu pandemic, see: Crosby, Alfred W. <i>America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.</ref>