So for the first time I went shopping with a face mask yesterday. I had asked my saintly sainted mother if she would be willing to create a handful of them. Having little to do other than watch cooking shows and pet her cat, she was more than happy to do so, and today while I was dropping off groceries she gave me what she had created. After some adjustments were made (a stitch removed from the elastic to increase the size), my wife and I made our way to BJs to pick up some bulk items (including some meat). Well needless to say, I did not take well to the experience.
I am hoping that the masks I ordered will be a little bit more comfortable, and maybe the removal of a significant amount of facial hair is in order. Still, it was uncomfortable, unwieldy, hot and unpleasant. It gave me a some sympathy for the anti-stay-at-home protesters, despite their obvious ulterior motives and ill-advised leadership. And that in turn made me examine another quote I often use but never questioned, history doesn't repeat itself but often rhymes. It turns out not to be a quote from Mark Twain as I had always understood, but was at one point falsely attributed to him by James George Eayrs in 1971.
This isn't the first reaction to countermeasures like these in our history. I always try to avoid comparisons to the Spanish Flu as I always thought it unjust to compare the virility of the virus of 1918 to the one today, but people are still people, and stupid still applies. The Influenza Encyclopedia is a wonderful resource with articles covering numerous topics, but I ran across one recently that deals with exactly how I was (and maybe some of the protesters are) feeling. It is the story of San Francisco.
At noon on November 21, San Franciscans simultaneously removed their masks as a whistle-blow sounded across the city, the result of Mayor Rolph’s annulment of the ordinance the previous day. Requests by the health department to conserve gauze amounted to little as residents joyously ripped the hated masks from their faces and unceremoniously tossed them in the streets. As the Chronicle aptly described the scene, “the sidewalks and runnels were strewn with the relics of a torturous month.” The order to hold fast until noon was taken seriously, as one man found out when he tried to blow his unmasked nose just seconds before 12:00, only to be yelled at by a nearby police officer to “Cover your mouth, mister!”
The celebrations were unfortunately short-lived. On December 7, Mayor Rolph, after being informed by Hassler of a slight recrudescence of the disease, publicly declared that influenza was once again epidemic in San Francisco and requested that residents once again don their masks. Hassler believed that the epidemic had been stamped out, and that the new cases were the result of infectious outsiders from other parts of the state entering San Francisco. Business closures and a gathering bans were not considered, as it was believed that re-masking would be all that was necessary to rid the city of the disease once and for all.
When the number of new cases being reported to health authorities dipped slightly, it gave all involved hope that a second peak was not on its way. Hassler, the Board of Supervisors, and a small committee of representatives from the business community met and decided that a second mandatory mask order was not necessary for the time being but that citizens be warned to voluntarily wear masks. The reprieve was only temporary. On January 10, with over 600 new influenza cases reported for the day, the Board of Supervisors voted to re-enact the mask ordinance beginning January 17, despite strong evidence that, as one newspaper put it, “the compulsory wearing of masks does not affect the progress of the epidemic.
Of course in this case the difference between H1N1 and COVID-19 make a face mask more viable. Although a mask won't save you from the virus, it does help protect others if you are infected.
Now I have to figure out how to come up with another $20 to get my wife a smurf mask.