About 2,000 members of a so-called Anti-Mask League gathered in San Francisco “for a rally denouncing the mask ordinance and proposing ways to defeat it....Many businesses, unwilling to turn away shoppers, wouldn’t bar unmasked customers from their stores.” This week? Nope. 1918.

Like today, people fought masks and restrictions on gatherings in efforts to fight the Spanish Flu. 500 million would get sick and 60 million people would go on to die. We’re about one-tenth of the way there today. No, we don’t learn from history. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244267462.html

Authorities begged people to wear masks, open windows and stay inside. In October and November 1918 more than 20 million got sick. A Denver mask law “was almost totally ignored by the people; in fact, the order was cause of mirth,” according to newspapers at the time.