History Lesson: SF Had an Anti-Mask League During the 1918 Flu Pandemic

It turns out that, a century ago, San Francisco was home to a movement akin to the "liberate" protests that have been going on around the country, in which city residents formed an Anti-Mask League as the 1918 influenza pandemic extended into January 1919.

Yes, San Francisco may be a progressive place where we embrace science and listen to health experts these days, but a century ago, public fatigue with health orders relating to the influenza pandemic in its second wave incited protest — specifically a local order that, just like we instituted here again a little over a week ago, required surgical-type cloth masks in public to help stop the spread of the virulent strain of the flu.

NPR reporter Tim Mak unearthed this tidbit from San Francisco's past and wrote about it in a Twitter thread last week. It comes via newspaper clippings from January 1919, and historical reporting by local author Gary Kamiya, and Alfred W. Crosby in his book America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Mak also drew on the SF Chronicle's archives and the University of Michigan's Influenza Encyclopedia.

The story goes like this: The Dr. Fauci of San Francisco in 1918 was a man named Dr. William C. Hassler. As the second wave of the influenza pandemic began in the fall of 1918, San Francisco was only seeing its first confirmed cases. The first case came on September 24, when a man newly arrived in town from Chicago fell ill. Just weeks later, on October 9, SF had 169 cases. That number ballooned over the course of several weeks. By October 17, Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph was ordering all schools, dance halls, and movie theaters shut down — sound familiar?

Hassler and the Board of Supervisors instituted a mask-wearing ordinance for the city by late October, to which there were citations and fines attached. The public mostly complied into November, at which point cases in SF were down, and public health officials recommended reopening the city on November 21. But cases surged again within weeks, and Hassler tried to re-institute the masking ordinance again, encouraging people to wear masks in early December. City officials voted down his mask ordinance on December 19, and flu cases and deaths surged again — with the peak death count here being December 30.




https://sfist.com/2020/04/27/history-lesson-sf-had-an-anti-mask-league-during-the-1918-flu-pandemic-who-rallied-against-face-masks/

U.S. Postal Service Funding Shortfall Could Derail Vote-By-Mail Efforts During Pandemic

If Congress allows the U.S. Postal Service to fail ― as President Donald Trump seems willing to do ― the nation’s ability to hold free, fair elections would be at risk, as would millions of voters who would be forced to go to the polls during a pandemic if they wanted to exercise their rights.

In the 2016 election, 33 million Americans voted through the mail, using either absentee, military or mail-in ballots. Every state anticipates a significant increase in mailed ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, with anywhere from a doubling of vote-by-mail to a near 100% replacement of in-person voting. All of the states rely on the Postal Service to deliver and return those ballots.

But the Postal Service projects that the drop in mail volume due to the pandemic could lead it to run out of funds in late summer or early fall. The independent agency is asking Congress for $75 billion in relief funding to keep it afloat, but faces resistance from Trump.

State election officials ― Republicans and Democrats ― are joining in the call for the funding to ensure voters have every option available to them to vote in the 2020 elections, given new social distancing needs stemming from the COVID-19 crisis.

“America needs Congress to do its part to ensure the very foundation on which we conduct our elections does not crumble,” Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos (D) said.


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/postal-service-vote-by-mail-pandemic_n_5ea9c7dfc5b60db2c79d94da

Michigan security guard shot, killed after asking customer to cover face.

Bonus Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Besties for 78 years die of coronavirus 6 days apart, now 'They're together up there'

For 78 years — through adolescence, marriage, children, jobs, widowhood and dementia — Mary and Jessie remained devoted friends.

They bickered the way best girlfriends sometimes do. They teased each other about boys they'd grown up with in their old neighborhood on Detroit's east side. And they teased each other about getting older. Mary never failed to take joy in the fact that she was a little more than three months younger than Jessie. But they always found their way back to each other.

Even at the very end.

Like so many elderly people during this pandemic, Mary Hackett and Jessie "Toots" Ancona, both 91, were living in metro Detroit nursing homes when they became sick with COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

They were transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Troy within days of each other and, unbeknownst to them, ended up in rooms just two floors apart.

They died within six days of each other — Mary on April 5, Jessie on April 11 — without their families at their bedsides because that is the way people die these days.

But neither of them were alone.

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https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/05/03/best-friends-for-78-years-die-from-coronavirus/3048477001/

The Biden campaign faces a mind-boggling challenge: How to make Joe go viral

How does a campaign take a 77-year-old man — who admits he needs his granddaughter's help with his cellphone and pitches himself as sober and reasonable — and make him go viral?

That perplexing challenge has become a consuming focus of Joe Biden’s campaign as it tries to finally up its digital game to compete against a challenger who not only understands intuitively how to generate clicks and buzz — but boasts a massive and sophisticated digital operation to amplify his message.

So far, Biden’s paltry digital team of about 25 people has decided mostly to eschew the combative fare preferred by the president’s campaign in favor of uplifting content designed to inspire. The rub, as no one understands better than Trump, is that the social media platforms — and the algorithms that power them — reward bombast and conflict. Amid the collage of newly published saccharine videos posted on Biden’s Facebook page, it’s the Trump-bashing ones that usually have the most views.

But Biden's campaign is betting that its strategy — which reminds one of Upworthy, the go-to site for feel-good news — has the benefit of being true to Biden and more effective in creating a core of enthusiastic supporters online.




https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/03/can-joe-bidens-team-make-him-go-viral-228706

Biden wins all-mail Kansas primary

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Kansas, which was conducted fully through the mail.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, earned 77 percent of the vote and 29 of the state’s delegates, bringing him one step closer to clinching the nomination, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.

The former vice president has 1,435 delegates out of the needed 1,991 to win the Democratic nomination, which he is expected to reach in June.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was still in the race at the time of the state’s primary, earned 10 delegates in the race. He has retained a total of 984 delegates, according to the AP.



https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/495873-biden-wins-all-mail-kansas-primary

The Velvet Underground-Sunday Morning

A Trump-backing sheriff fired his lesbian deputy. So she ran for his job and just crushed him

Cincinnati’s Hamilton County is likely to elect their first openly gay sheriff this November—a former deputy who was fired by the current sheriff, who attended a Trump rally in 2016.

Charmaine McGuffey, who has won the Democratic nomination for county sheriff, has the kind of storied career in law enforcement you’d hope for in a candidate. She also has the honor of having been fired for being a lesbian who tried to get Hamilton’s current sheriff to act on systemic misconduct against women.

“The current sheriff and I got into a pretty serious disagreement about the practice of him not holding officers accountable for use of force and harassment of women, female officers, and female inmates,” McGuffey told LGBTQ Nation.

She took her time away to come to the conclusion that she could do a better job than the guy who fired her. Voters agree: in the Democratic primary last month, McGuffey beat him for this November’s nomination in a landslide.


https://www.frontpagelive.com/2020/05/01/cincinnatis-sheriff-fired-his-lesbian-deputy-so-she-ran-for-his-job-and-just-crushed-him/