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History Of Anti-Maskers

Credit: Public Domain
Credit: Public Domain

A small piece of cloth continues to spark big debate in the U.S. Some Americans believe mandates to wear a mask infringe on their personal freedoms. Turns out, this has happened before.

Marian Moser Jones, formerly of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health, tells us about the ‘anti-mask league of 1918.’

Jones admits that today’s mask-wearing mandates can feel inconvenient, but says we can learn from the Spanish Flu pandemic:

“The flu tells us, and the response to the flu tells us, that the more restrictions you have for longer periods of time, the lesser the mortality and the morbidity is going to be.” 

Plus, how did that deadly flu play out in Baltimore?

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'