“Surgical Masks During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920”

Editorial, The American Surgeon, July 2020

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journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… “During the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920, cloth facemasks were widely used by the public in a futile effort to ward off the deadly infection (Figure 1). More than a century later, it symbolizes “social distancing,” the global strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. ”

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Example: “An example of these flaws is the Pandemic Influenza Plan of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (last revision, May 2007), which posits a “containment” strategy based on a massive use of force by all levels of government:”

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https://twitter.com/maestro_rayo/status/1563510359096365059

«Containment attempts would require stringent infection-control measures such as bans on large public gatherings, isolation of symptomatic individuals, prophylaxis of the entire community with antiviral drugs, and various forms of movement restrictions...

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In 2008 the American Civil Liberties Union published a report entitled “Pandemic Preparedness The Need For A Public Health - Not A Law Enforcement/national Security- Approach”

aclu.org/sites/default/…

1/ The motivation for this report was 1) to review lessons learned from history 2) to react to post 9/11 pandemic preparedness plans and 3) to give a series of recommendations on how to balance pandemic reaction and democracy.

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Fascinating account of the public health response to the 1918 Spanish flu by Molly Billings (then at Stanford) in 1997. Did much change in one century?

virus.stanford.edu/uda/index.html

1/ Exec. summary: “While most of the measures were solidly grounded in the current scientific concepts, they could also be traced back to Medieval and even Classical times of plague and pestilence”

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