Anti-mask sentiment goes back 100 years to Spanish flu pandemic
A pandemic was raging.
Newspapers printed record-breaking tallies of new cases and deaths daily while safety measures butted up against economic concerns and misinformation ran wild.
Masks were widely accepted as the best shot at curbing the virus, while a small but not insignificant number pushed back against the rules, arguing they were free to keep their faces bare.
It sounds like 2020, but it was the “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918.
More than 100 years before a Florida state representative sued Pinellas County over its mask ordinance, and anti-mask protesters rallied around a restaurant offering free grilled cheese to patrons who arrived bare-faced — echoing similar demonstrations across the U.S. recently — there was San Francisco’s Anti-Mask League led by lawyer, suffragette, and civil rights activist E.C. Harrington.
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https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/08/03/anti-mask-sentiment-goes-back-100-years-to-spanish-flu-pandemic/
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