The most bitter part of the pandemic

For the crime of spitting in public, New York City officials arrested and fined 144 men on Oct. 4, 1918, during the second — and deadliest — wave of the flu pandemic. Cases had suddenly spiked, and the city’s Department of Health became desperate to curb the spreading disease. With no hope for a vaccine nor a cure, the city posted bulletins imploring people to sneeze into handkerchiefs, avoid crowds, stop spitting, and wash their hands. During the heat of the pandemic, some New Yorkers donned masks.

Yet now, over 100 years later, we’re stuck combating the latest human scourge, the newly emerged coronavirus, in mostly the same ways. (Though perhaps spitting is less of a problem.) Read more…

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