SLO City Council mandated masks for Spanish flu. Why not for coronavirus?

Thinking is hard. The brain is 2% of body weight but consumes 20% of oxygen. To survive, humans have adapted to think as little as possible. We divide things into categories (chairs, tables; friends, threats) so we don’t have to analyze each new situation. We solve problems with past experiences rather than abstract reasoning. We go through daily activities as scripts we can “do without thinking.”

Then something new comes along — novel coronavirus — and our categories, experiences and scripts don’t work anymore. People you’re close to are friends and threats. You interrupt your habits with soap and social distance and analyze everything you do for danger.

The easy thing is to give up thinking. Pull out old signs against old foes. Anti-lockdown protests have been understandably nostalgic. Governors are fascists, Nazis. Slogans are from the 18th century: “Liberty or Death,” “We the People,” “Don’t Tread On Me.” Hitler and King George were enemies you could get a handle on.

But nothing’s more old-fashioned than lockdown. On Oct. 15, 1918, The Tribune reported there were 18 cases of Spanish flu in our town of 5,700. A week later, we shuttered schools, then theaters, churches, dance halls. “Wear a mask, not only to safeguard yourself, but to safeguard others,” said The Trib.

A month later, and “VICTORY QUELLS FLU AS WELL AS HUN.” New cases didn’t disappear, but — because they didn’t fit the script of “get sick, get better”— they were presented as meaningless: “light” and “occasional.” By Christmas, the flu roared back. Twelve died in Paso Robles in 48 hours, five from a single highway crew. Three weeks later, the SLO City Council finally decreed “no more than three persons shall congregate at any one time.” Masks were required in public streets and any gathering of two or more. Punishment was 10 days jail.

It was too late. In January alone, 36 people died of the flu in San Luis, 0.7% of the population, as bad as U.S. mortality for the whole year. Pandemics are a crap shoot. Some communities get hit harder, but eventually every community gets hit.

We did COVID lockdown because it was too hard to think. We shut air travel against Chinese but not Europeans, foreign citizens but not Americans, externally but not internally. Now genetic research shows New York got the virus from Europe and most of America got it from New York — a strain more infectious than the Asian one, which predominated on the West Coast but is now being crowded out.

We saw coronavirus testing and tracking work in other countries but hoped dawdling would work in America. Never have we known more about a pandemic disease. Never has knowledge fallen on such deaf political ears, in America, the first country founded on rational principles.

Studies show from 25% to 50% of people with COVID don’t know they have it. We know it spreads when you cough, sneeze, talk, or breathe — you’re wearing a mask. A new study led by DeKai Wu at UC Berkeley suggests80–90% of people wearing masks is dramatically more effective than lockdown at eliminating spread; 50% wearing masks, less effective than lockdown and only mitigates spread; social distancing without masks or lockdown, scarcely effective at all.

As important, masks interrupt our old scripts by reminding us we’re in a new, more dangerous time—but at least one where can be confident everyone’s being careful for each other.

So, with characteristic moral courage, the SLO City Council will vanquish coronavirus by suspending parking meters rather than requiring masks. I’m speaking of the council of 2020, not 1919; it turns out your vision is not based on the year you serve. Carlyn Christianson said requiring masks would be hard, Aaron Gomez that it would require “nuance.” I couldn’t figure out what Andy Pease said, and Erica Stewart didn’t say anything.

Even the White House masks, tests and contact traces themselves. They just don’t think we Expendables need to.

The county won’t require masks because of Republicans, the state because of rurals. Only if it’s the law will most people in this city wear them and masking be effective. That’s what law is for: mandating public interest over self-interest.

Let’s hope this time the City Council doesn’t wait too long. They can save your life. Or they can leave it at saving you a quarter at the parking meter.

James Papp is co-owner of Historicities LLC and chair of the city of San Luis Obispo’s Cultural Heritage Committee. He writes an occasional column for The Tribune.

This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 11:35 AM.