In the 1918 flu pandemic, not wearing a mask was i
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Posted On: 11/21/2020 6:13:17 PM
In the 1918 flu pandemic, not wearing a mask was illegal in some parts of America. What changed?
By Paul French, for CNN
(CNN)When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit Asia, people across the region were quick to wear masks, with some places like Taiwan and the Philippines even making them mandatory in certain scenarios.
But in the West, mask adoption has been far slower, with England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, for example, going so far as to claim mask-wearing is unnecessary.
Yet it hasn't always been the case that mask-wearing is an Asian proclivity.
It certainly wasn't during the influenza pandemic of 1918, which lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, and infected one-third of the world's population, or about 500 million people, leading to about 50 million deaths -- about half a million of which were in the United States.
Did mask wearing work?
During the 1918 flu pandemic, scientific research around mask use was still largely anecdotal -- and the compelling story of one ocean liner caught people's attention.
In early December 1918, the Times newspaper in London reported that it had been established, by doctors in the United States, that the influenza was "contact-borne and consequently preventable."
The Times noted that in one London hospital all staff and patients had been issued with, and instructed to constantly wear, face masks. The newspaper cited the successes of face masks on one ship.
The ocean liner sailing between the United States and England had suffered a terrible infection rate coming from New York, the Times reported. When returning to the United States, the captain instituted a face-mask order for crew and passengers, after having read about their use in San Francisco.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 25, 1918.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 25, 1918.
No infections were reported on the return trip, despite high infection rates at the time in both Manhattan and Southampton, from where the ship departed. It was impossible to know if the rules on masks on the return voyage were responsible for the lack of infections, but that was how the press interpreted it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/americas/flu-a...index.html
By Paul French, for CNN
(CNN)When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit Asia, people across the region were quick to wear masks, with some places like Taiwan and the Philippines even making them mandatory in certain scenarios.
But in the West, mask adoption has been far slower, with England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, for example, going so far as to claim mask-wearing is unnecessary.
Yet it hasn't always been the case that mask-wearing is an Asian proclivity.
It certainly wasn't during the influenza pandemic of 1918, which lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, and infected one-third of the world's population, or about 500 million people, leading to about 50 million deaths -- about half a million of which were in the United States.
Did mask wearing work?
During the 1918 flu pandemic, scientific research around mask use was still largely anecdotal -- and the compelling story of one ocean liner caught people's attention.
In early December 1918, the Times newspaper in London reported that it had been established, by doctors in the United States, that the influenza was "contact-borne and consequently preventable."
The Times noted that in one London hospital all staff and patients had been issued with, and instructed to constantly wear, face masks. The newspaper cited the successes of face masks on one ship.
The ocean liner sailing between the United States and England had suffered a terrible infection rate coming from New York, the Times reported. When returning to the United States, the captain instituted a face-mask order for crew and passengers, after having read about their use in San Francisco.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 25, 1918.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 25, 1918.
No infections were reported on the return trip, despite high infection rates at the time in both Manhattan and Southampton, from where the ship departed. It was impossible to know if the rules on masks on the return voyage were responsible for the lack of infections, but that was how the press interpreted it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/americas/flu-a...index.html
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