During the 1918 flu's second spike, Americans resisted measures that protected them

[iluvtennis]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIA-NZYMdQr/


motherjonesmag During the 1918 flu's second spike, Americans resisted measures that protected them. Sound familiar?⁠
⁠
If history is any indicator, attempts to reinstitute social distancing measures to flatten a potential second wave of the virus could face more opposition than the initial lockdowns. The widespread business closures and mask ordinances implemented during the 1918 influenza pandemic weren’t especially popular. Yet a second round of restrictions put in place to stem a second wave of the flu was so hated that dissenters in San Francisco formed a 2,000-person Anti-Mask League and some mayors openly violated public health orders.⁠
⁠
To understand the echoes of the flu pandemic in our current moment, Mother Jones's Abigail Weinberg contacted historian J. Alex Navarro. Navarro was one of the researchers who, as part of a Bush-era initiative to prepare for for a possible pandemic, helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by studying newspaper archives from 43 American cities to determine whether social distancing measures during the 1918 outbreak reduced mortality. (They did.) Navarro, along with Dr. Howard Markel, is coeditor-in-chief of the online Influenza Encyclopedia, which hosts a fascinating page about the anti-mask sentiment that abounded in 1918 San Francisco.⁠
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She spoke with Navarro about a historical constant: humans’ tendency to buck authority, even if it means putting their health at risk.

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People gotta get smart - we can prevent history from repeating itself.

[2naSalit]

1. We could...

But probably not enough will comply.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. I think it's too late now.

All these people flying everywhere and having big Thanksgiving dinners are fucking up a lot of the work that's been done with masks and social distancing up to now. We're going to see Covid cases explode all over the country and all the hospitals are going to be full. It's going to be an ugly Christmas for a lot of people. Everyone who wants to stay negative should keep interaction with others to a minimum during this time.

[Lars39]

4. Remember China reports?

We’ll start hearing of people dying in the streets and on the way to the hospital etc

[LuvNewcastle]

7. I think so, too.

Up until now, at least in most places, we've been able to keep the spread down to a manageable level, and the hospitals have been able to handle the number of patients they've had. All that is about to change. More patients means less time for each person, so more deaths. I wish people would listen to reason.

[mr_lebowski]

3. Letting the stupid people die of stupid causes ...

Not quite sure I find that idea entirely undesirable ...

[pbmus]

6. LMAO

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. But they are brutalizing our health care workers on their way out.

[iluvtennis]

5. Research shows the cities that used masks and social distancing in 1918 fared better than others

https://www.influenzaarchive.org/about.html

After an intense, year-long examination of the public health response of 43 American cities during the 1918-1919 epidemic, researchers at the Center for the History of Medicine and the CDC concluded that those cities that used social distancing measures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) in 1918 fared better than those that did not. More specifically, we found a strong association between early, sustained, and layered use of NPI and mitigating the consequences of the epidemic.

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Masks and social distancing were found to be effective in 1918. It's a shame that we in 2020 can't learn from 102 years of history

[FirstLight]

8. stubbornness and refusal to change are unfortunately big human traits it seems

Just checking our local paper and skimming the comments on ANY COVID related article is a testament to this. People just saying the same stuff over and over about how others are living in fear and the government is trying to tell us what to do and if we shut things down it hurts the economy etc ad nauseaum...

Really pisses me off that so many of my fellow "locals" refuse to be reasonable and welcome the influx of millions of tourists to our small town when we have LITERALLY less than 100 beds in our Hospital and 20K local residents. Right now they are already planning for where to find overflow capacity. oh, and only 5 ICU beds.

Even the county sheriff is full of these political hacks...they issued a statement following gov Newsom's curfew saying they would NOT be enforcing it because they "uphold the Constitution" instead... WTAF?

Personal FREEDOMS are a societal agreement as well...and certain civil freedoms become moot in the face of Public Safety. period.
Same for when there's a tornado warning or hurricaine... you see people out there driving towards the tornado screaming about their freedom to be outside?

The stupid.it burns. and unfortunately in these cases, it KILLS OTHERS, not just the idjits.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. Oh so true.

Still to this day recall my Grand Mothers both talking about how their relatives and neighbors refused to wear masks during the 1918 pandemic. As they both mentioned,it was worse in the Farm Country than in the big towns. Simply ignorance was the flavor of the day.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. Hunker down if you can, mask if you have to go out, try not to burden essential workers.

Wave to the truckers and the people stocking the shelves.

[iluvtennis]

12. + agree. nt

[Azathoth]

11. Humans are half a chromosome away from chimpanzees

And it shows everyday.

[Cha]

14. Our paternal grandfather died

in 2019 from the Pandemic flu.. it broke my grandmother's heart.

He was a young man working in a train station in a small town in Eastern Colorado.. on the Plains.