Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: The Most Dangerous Parade

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

This week on Sawbones, we discuss Philadelphia's disastrous Fourth Liberty Loan Parade that helped reignite the 1918 influenza epidemic in the region. We'll also examine some other unnerving similarities between that century-old disaster and our current situation.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a marital tour of Miss Guy, Adminisson.

I'm your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Sydney, this dark time that we find ourselves in, has given birth to a lot of really powerful Facebook meme culture. So that's definitely true. The memes they move so fast these days. Yeah.

You can barely keep up. You can, the one with the guy who's walking with the one girl, but he's turned around to check out the other girl. That one's getting a lot of use for a lot of different. Yeah, a lot of different purposes. See that one. A lot of the, this is fine dog with the coffee cup on fire. Yeah, the fit, this is fine dog as his sort of, yeah, as you bet with us at this point. And really so. One in particular that has surfaced that I actually saw required snopes to check into recently

is I think something worth discussing on our show because it is referencing. Let me start recording. Hold on. OK, go ahead. I thought you were serious for a second. I can say, what have we been doing? This is how we always talk to each other.

So that is table, six feet away. Well, I'm looking at my computer screen and timing us. So this one is interesting because it is based on medical history and it has some fact, but also not exactly right, a little inaccurate. I mean, not untrue, but I think snow-thrated it mixed. So, you know, there's some fact in there, but it's also not quite right. But it's being used to argue a point

that is true and valid and I agree with, but I'd never think we should use something that's not accurate to support our costs. Whatever side you're on, it should only be based on facts and truth and not. That's our side. That's the side we're on. Right. So I think it's worth delving into so that we can talk about why it is important and relevant

just maybe not exactly in the way your aunt shared it on Facebook. All right, I'm ready. Not your aunt, just. No, my aunt. This is the ubiquitous Facebook aunt. So I want to talk about parades and disease. OK.

This is especially important in light of the fact that in the last, I think when we recorded our last episode was the day of the president's press conference when he introduced his plan to make America back open, open up again, but whatever it is. Make America back open up again. That's what it was. It's something to that effect. That's such a, it's such a tricky thing.

Obviously, there's been a huge impact on the economy. Obviously, people are struggling. When we talk about the economy and this vague sense, it's important to remember, like, these are made up of people. The economy is made up of humans who are working and don't have jobs right now and need money and support and an income. And obviously, that's a problem. There's a lot of pushback from the medical and scientific community.

And I would put myself in there that we have to be careful how we do this. Yes, of course, this is a problem. But perhaps we could look at other ways of supporting the citizens of our nation as opposed to forcing them back to work into dangerous situations that might create another spike of cases and lead to overwhelming

our medical system, which is what we've all been sacrificing to try to avoid. Right. It would make all of this flattening the curve for nothing if we all rushed back into the world. I can't, my heart can't take that. It has to be for something. And it would just mean, not only, of course,

more people would get sick, some people would die, and our medical system would be completely overwhelmed, again, leading to the endangerment of all of our healthcare workers, as well of all of our other essential workers. It would also mean we would have to be isolating longer. Boo, hiss. So let's do it right.

We don't have enough tests, we don't have enough PPE to do any of the phases that relate out at the press conference yet. Hopefully we will. But we're not there yet. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Georgia. Georgia. Even like Trump said Georgia was wrong, right?

Hey, Georgia, if Trump Trump's like that's a reckless Come on Georgia I Used to live there and you're really you're really embarrassing me right now Embracing yourself. Yeah, and and And top of the island and the bar city All the great Georgia Georgia landmarks and wait cross and the Okiafinokey swamp and your excellent aquarium and the Bar City. You're embarrassing all the great Georgia landmarks. And Wake Cross and the Okie-Fanoki swamp.

And you're excellent aquarium and the Braves and Tet Turner. Montana Ted as he insists I call him. And my friend Carolyn. And you're cities from Carolyn and her family. Everybody. We're all ox equally in the Olympic park. Come on Georgia. That big fair as we all, we're all equally ashamed.

We really do love Atlanta, though. Love Atlanta. So if we, I like to look, when things are complicated, when we're trying to find a way out of a difficult situation, I think it's helpful to look to the past and see, like, where did we screw up before? Because we usually try to screw it up that way again. So maybe we could not this time.

Maybe there's a lesson we could learn. And this meme about the Liberty Loan Parade, the fourth Liberty Loan Parade, I should say, in Philadelphia on September 28th of 1918, has been shared a lot. Now you had not seen it, right, Justin? No, but I'm pretty choosy about my followers, right, this time of year.

This was every year. This time of time, I mean. And a lot of articles came from this, recent articles. Now I tried to read about all of this in pre-COVID articles, journal articles, and historical accounts of the time, because everything looks different in light of current events.

So I tried to look into the history of this parade, was it as reckless as the accusation of the Facebook meme is that the influenza pandemic of 1918, which is often called the Spanish flu, even though that's not really fair. As we've discussed on the show previously, the Spanish flu was only called that because at the time Spain was neutral during World War I, and so they did not have a media blackout on reporting like illness. But all the other countries where the flu was occurring didn't want to say that out loud because it would look, you know, I mean, it would weaken them, weaken their position. And so Spain reported it.

So they got tagged with it. But it was not in any way Spanish and origin. But the accusation is that because even though the epidemic had, the pandemic had been kind of halted and was under control, then Philadelphia loosened its social distancing restrictions in order to have this parade. And after this parade, there was a huge spike in cases. And as I already said, there's truth in there. The parade happened. There was the, there are actually three peaks to the Spanish flu, I should say the influenza

pandemic of 1918 to be fair to Spain. I think Spain's over it. That's such a mouthful. I think Spain is fine. It is a misnower, but to be fair to Spain. I think Spain's over it. And that's such a mouthful. I think Spain's fine. It is a misnower, but to be fair. But there are actually three peaks. And there, so there was a second wave around this time and it was the worst of the three.

But it is not tied to exactly this parade, or the later parades, like some of the memes tied to the Armistice Day Parades that occurred later on. And that's a whole other thing. So there's truth in here, but it's muddled. Because I want to talk about that, I want to talk about the, I want to talk a little bit about Boston, and I want to talk about San Francisco and Masks, because everybody has a history that they're not thrilled about, not just poor Philadelphia, who gets, as maligned as Georgia was at the beginning of this podcast. What's fascinating to read about is that even if you look

at articles written before this pandemic, you can find tons of connection between the influenza pandemic of 1918 and coronavirus today. There's lots of things that are said that are, I mean, eerie in how similar and how well they apply to the current situation, which is frustrating. Right. Because, I mean, some of them were in reference to H1N1, which we think of as sort of like a bullet dodged in that it was bad, but not nearly as bad as we feared it could be.

And we still yet were somehow caught with our pants down. Yeah. It was at a time the Spanish flu occurred at a time when transportation across the country was available. It had advanced in a way that it never had before, and across the oceans that you could move, people were more mobile than they had ever been before at this point in history. Obviously, that is true today, only even more so.

A pandemic was possible in a way that it had never really been, I like to spread as quickly, just because transportation was so much faster and easier, and so many more people could do it. Communication between different parts of the world was available in a way it never had been before. So you could know about things that were happening overseas, about new illnesses that had sprung up even before they hit your shores. And you could take advantage of that or not, depending on if you were paying attention or not, depending on if you were paying attention or not. But all of this was new, again, similar to today.

And the presence of the media to report on these things, this was really the first big boom of that in especially American history, where all of this is being covered constantly, because this is when kind of the realization that disease sells papers hit. And so all of this is being broadcast to the public constantly and that's really shaping their perception of the events and their reaction to the events.

There was a strong public health system in place because of a more recent influenza epidemic one in the late 1800s. There was a public health system to address this stuff. There was a feeling that because we understood germ theory pretty well now, it was much more widely accepted, not completely, but still more so. And how diseases were transmitted. And we understood things about isolation and quarantine because of tuberculosis. We really felt like we were set for anything.

We had it. Like we had it. Under control. We were great. Not again, this is the first time. Okay. It's again now. And now is again.

The again. So it's still disputed exactly where this, what it's an avian flu, you know, the genetics of it seemed to have come from a bird at some point. So all the pigs are always involved, right? When it comes to the flu, there's always some chickens and pigs involved in there somewhere. You can blame one or the other, but it's all. It's all chicken and pigs. It's all the flu. So somewhere it jumped from an animal to a human it's often been targeted to Kansas as the the where it first appeared although it's it's hard to say we're not exactly sure it may have come from US soil.

First person said that pig looks sick, but I'm gonna kiss it anyway. Perhaps perhaps perhaps there were that pig looks sick, but I'm going to kiss it anyway. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. There were cases initially in the spring of 2018, largely associated with military installations. And this is not a conspiracy theory thing, although I think it's interesting. That was floated from time to time during the course of the year, especially things got worse. Did it was a targeted biological attack? Did Germany do this? Hmm. I know. No, but it doesn't seem so outrageous when you hear some of the conspiracy

theories out there. Yeah, that's right. Today, which by the way, I think it's always relevant to point out that the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID, did not originate in a lab anywhere on this planet. It originated in an animal and then jumped to a human And that is very unfortunate luck for humans, but that's it There's no conspiracy. I just feel like that should be re-edited. I was gonna take it work for it I guess Well, that's the truth. That's not just it the JXA Anyway, science says it so There was this thought. Oh was it something to do with Germany now? It's really just it appeared on these military

installations because of crowding Mm-hmm sure lots of people living close together, right? Places any place where people live close together and moved all over the place could spread it easily And so you have soldiers being moved throughout the country and carrying the virus with them. They're, like I said, it started with this cluster of cases in Canvas, in Kansas that were reported in April. There was another one in May. But this wave, this first peak of the flu,

really wasn't that bad, all things considered. It certainly wasn't as bad as it was going to get. Throughout the spring, it was not obvious that this was a giant issue yet. And as we kind of move into the summer, you still have troops moving all over the country. So you've got people going from Boston to Philly to Kansas to New Orleans to the Puget Sound or the Great Lakes to go back all over North America. But then as summer hits, we start shipping our American GI's along with their flu virus overseas. Exporting. Exporting it to Europe.

And somewhere, and even though on the US end, things seem to start calming as we moved into the summer, which has again been cited, I think, in this current, like the US end, things seem to start calming as we moved into the summer, which is again been cited, I think, in this current, like the idea that, well, in the summer, things will calm down. They heat will calm it down. So things did seem to calm down over the summer of 1918 for the US somewhat, even as we start to see cases climbing throughout Europe, and we start to see the pandemic burn throughout Europe.

But by the fall, we knew a lot more about it as a world. As a world community, we knew there's a flu out there that seems pretty bad, and it also seems to have gotten worse, which probably did happen. The thought now is that there was some sort of mutation that occurred over that summer as soldiers were being transported all over the world and being stuck in close quarters together. At some point, the virus got worse. I thought, how many of you told me before that usually when viruses mutate the mutate de-it-weaker?

Well, this one didn't. Dang. No, I guess that's what you say usually, huh? Not necessarily, but yeah, I mean, the ones that make the most people sort of sick and are spread while Keeping people well enough to continue out into the community or selected for right? Whereas the ones that send you straight to bed and then you can't leave and you can't interact with humans don't You know, they're out competed But in this case, somewhere in there, the flu seemed to get deadlier.

And it was a lot more merciless in who it targeted. The first wave, like most influenza seasonal flu outbreaks, tended to target the very young and the very old. Whereas as we enter into late summer, early fall, we start seeing everybody getting sick. You know, healthy young adults, all of a sudden, our soldiers, troops are getting sick. And I think we've said this before, but it bears mentioning the influenza pandemic of 1918 and into 1919, killed more people, both soldiers and civilians than the war did. The war itself.

The war itself. Yeah. I mean, at this point, as we look into the summer, I was like half of British troops were in fact, I mean, it was all over the place. So as we move into the fall, we know there's this risk. We know that it's what we called at the time a crowd disease. This is not something you got while you were isolated in your home This is something that you got when you were out in the world. So we understood it's infectious nature

There was an outbreak at Fort Devons outside Boston in September and that was kind of a red flag That was a pretty big outbreak and a lot of people were nervous about it and even though people were sick there They were still shipping those soldiers out who had been exposed to the flu there at Fort Devons to other bases all over the country, which of course helped spread the virus. And in the interest of fairness, I think we should point out that Boston also had a parade around that time. Boston. So it's not just Philadelphia that was parade happy. On September 3rd, Boston had a win the war with freedom parade. And it featured a lot of the soldiers that were station there that were at that base.

So a lot of people who were infected went out into the streets and partied. And then we saw a lot more spread of flu among the community. Parades aren't even that fun, guys. I don't know if you all can hang in there for like 20 more years, TV is going to be invented. And then you'll see, you don't need parades. You don't need a parade. You don't need parades. No, especially like did they even have any of the big balloons? The big you have big balloons There were already places where where public health officials started trying to say things about social distancing This is really where like they call it that as an old term? Yeah, social distancing.

You really start to see these measures in place pretty quickly, but almost immediately, you also see the business community, and a lot of like larger business, like wealthy, the owners of larger businesses, pushing back against this and saying like, now, wait a second, we're Americans, we have our freedoms, we got our rights. That was one big argument.

The other was, you can't just crash the economy for the flu. I'm glad we outgrew that. I'm glad we learned our lesson there. Theaters were closed before a lot of other things and theater owners felt very single out because there was even a period of time in a lot of places where like bars and restaurants were still open, but theaters were closed. That's why. Right, which seems silly.

The non-essential businesses started complaining about essential ones and question what the definition was and all the quibbling that we have seen, I think now, it was the same thing, it was the same thing. And there was no safety net. There were people living paycheck to paycheck just as they are now. There were people who not having

their kids in school meant they didn't know who was going to take care of them and somebody had to take time off work. There was no universal child care as there is none now. Also, there was no universal health care. So all the same issues that made this incredibly difficult then, of course, still in place now. Yeah, I didn't fix any of those per se. No. And so we did have streaming, which they did not then. So we did fix that, because I'm sure they were also very bored. They probably, like, gin around me or something.

In one of the articles I read, you're kind of skipping ahead, but it's okay. The author specifically mentions that maybe the easy availability of entertainment, things like streaming services would make it so that a future pandemic would not be so taxing on humanity. You're saying, and when is this from? That article was written during, is 2009 during age one. Oh, I thought it was like during 1918, they're like, listen, if you all can just invent Netflix, please,

we're so bored. And then she said, I'm the doctor. So anyway, so by the fall, we knew something was up. There were people speaking out saying, we got to do something, we got to stop this. This seems to be worse. Whatever was happening in the spring. It's way worse now more people are getting sick people are getting way sick or than they were And so when Philadelphia started planning their fourth Liberty loan parade you can see why it's easy to go to look back and go What were you thinking? Yeah, what were you thinking?

At that around that same time St. Louis actually had a parade, like a same kind of theme and stuff, that canceled theirs. But Philadelphia decided to have theirs, and these were by the way parades that were held a lot of places throughout the US to help raise money for war bonds. To like get you all excited. Good college. I guess, but. Right. But it was, and it was also like something to hold up, like look how much money my city raised for the war effort. So it was a big deal to not have one of these parades.

There was a lot of political pressure to have it. There was a lot of economic pressure. And the people probably wanted it assuming that it's safe. And you know, when you hold a big giant parade, it sends the message to citizens that it is safe to hold a big giant parade. That's true. Whether it is or not, the outbreak in Philadelphia at that point was largely in the naval yard among, again, members of the military. Some had come directly from Boston. And there

was not, this is one of those things that's been debated much since then. The public health officer, William Cruzen, who was in charge, kind of like the lead at the health department in Philadelphia, it's much debated how much he knew or what he thought or what pressures he was bending to by allowing this parade to go forward. Or I should say, could he have even stopped it? If he had spoken out against it, many would say, well, he would have just been fired. Yeah. And then he wouldn't have been able to help later

when things, as you probably guess, are gonna get bad. It's, I don't know. I think it's easy to look back and find a bad guy. I think we see now that there's a lot of, there's a lot of pressure on governors and mayors and health department officials from a lot of different places. And to open back up and get things moving again. Yes, and so I don't think it's so easy to find one person that is the bad guy.

And I don't know if there was a big outcry from the medical community. I didn't find evidence that there was, like, a huge group of doctors who were going, you can't have this parade, you can't do it. It's gonna be terrible. I think there was like one guy who wrote an article about it like a week later, but like, you don't see this giant,

thundering cry to not have the parade. If it, maybe it was there, maybe it existed and maybe Cruz and ignored it. It's hard to say. Regardless, the parade. If it maybe it was there, maybe it existed and maybe Cruz and ignored it, it's hard to say. Regardless, the parade happened. Yes, on September 28th, 200,000 people packed the sidewalks of Broad Street in Philadelphia.

I'm assuming there was repercussions from this. I'm gonna tell you what they were, Justin, after we go to the Billion Department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my car to for the mouth. So city, before the parade passes by, I need to know what happened after the parade passed by.

It doesn't work exactly. It works here. No. What do you think happened, Justin? If you had to wager a guess. People got sick. They didn't feel good. They got sick from it from the parade. One big difference between influenza and the coronavirus is that people knew they were sick a lot faster. You didn't have quite as long an incubation period. I'd be nice if that was the case for coronavirus. Just for testing and... Sure, sure.

...understanding how we're managing the disease. It seems so hard to like. So who would be talking to the best two weeks? You know, what would have been the last two weeks? That is advantage coronavirus there. What are some other things that you like about coronavirus, Dr. McElroy? No. For real, let's all, it's great attributes. Shocker. Medical History Park has host loves

coronavirus is a big fan. Somebody's going to edit that into a clip and... No, police something. No, I do not love coronavirus. It is an advantage. You're just saying it has some... It's an advantage. No, it's an advantage over flu. If the two viruses it has some advantages. It is an advantage. No, it's advantage over flu. The two viruses were fighting in my head they are now. I'm seeing it. You can see it too. Just look up some pick anyway.

However, the consequences were swift. Tailor swift. Kinsling all our concerts in 1918 because of the spread of the Spanish flu. Because she knew, no. Within 72 hours of the parade, every bed in Philadelphia's 31 hospitals was filled. That's that quick turnaround on the flu there. Yeah.

And by the next week, 2,600 people in Philadelphia had died. Dang. From the flu. I hope that was a good parade. About a week later, a little over, maybe two weeks, actually. It was a very good parade. I hope they're a good parade about a week later a little over a week maybe two weeks actually It's a very good parade out there. Tossed out full side candy bars or something a week after that. It was 4,500 Hatchy-matchy so and and because I think this is particularly relevant even though like as you can already tell the timeline is a little off here and

There were other reasons Social distancing was not completely in place. It's not like they lifted it for the parade. This is early into the fall. The worst month of the flu in this country would be October. So we weren't into the worst of it yet. And so it's debatable to sit here and say like, they knew and they lifted all these restrictions for a parade

and look what happened. They weren't quite doing it right like they knew and they lifted all these restrictions for a parade and look what happened. Right. They weren't quite doing it right because the worst would just yet to come, but it was definitely made worse by events like this, like this parade. And there's definitely a voice that says, you didn't know. Somebody didn't know. Somebody wasn't, I mean, if St. Louis canceled theirs, like, certainly word had gotten around.

Somebody knew something. And it's easy to look back and see. There were a handful of cities who did things really well during this pandemic and a handful of cities who really didn't. And so somebody knew something. Most of the city's medical professionals were actually gone, which worsened, certainly which added to the death toll. It's in the war. That yes, they were gone in the war effort.

And so the system was completely overwhelmed. I mean, everything we've been talking about, we wanted to avoid by flattening the curve. I think what, unfortunately, it seems like a lot of my colleagues in New York have been experiencing, they were overwhelmed. The system was not prepared to hold the number of patients. It would see all at once.

And none of the system, just, I mean, mean obviously the hospitals themselves, the doctors, nurses, there weren't enough of any of any kind of medical professional, but all the other services too. I mean even like the funeral parlors and you know the morgue was overwhelmed. It was it was a gruesome scene in Philadelphia following this parade. Which you can see why it has left this mark on history because of all that. Afterwards, cruising and all the other doctors in city health officials responded by closing schools, churches, bar stores, everything. I mean, blocked the place down, did all this stuff and more that we're doing now, but

I think most of the damage had already been done. And it is true that as fall turned into winter, we actually saw a little bit of a downslope in cases, probably secondary to a lot of cities doing what Philadelphia did, kind of shutting the doors. And then we did see a third wave, a third spike in cases as we go into the winter at the end of 2018 into 2019, which does follow, you know, Armistice Day is in November. You have all the parade. There were parades and parties and celebrations that happened throughout November after that and into December. And we did see another spike in cases. It was not as bad as that second wave. That second wave, it's a W curve, if you can imagine.

Sure. And the middle of the W was definitely the worst of this flu pandemic. There were different protocols, like I said, throughout the city or throughout the country. And there were a lot of things that were similar to country. And there were a lot of things that were similar to here, and there were a lot of things that were similar to now. Some places mandated that you were masks. There was a huge effort at home, people who, so largely women at the time, were asked to make homemade masks to hand out to people

to, because nobody had any. You know, there were some, I mean, there were medical masks, but most people at home didn't have masks. They did things like banning public spitting at this time, which, Hey, why did we waste so long to ban public spitting? If we could have just banned that, I'm so glad I have lived in the time since spitting in public was sort of like,

for I know it's not banned, but like. It's basically banned. I mean, like, I don't see. It's canceled with the worst. I don't see a lot of people spitting in public. Oh, so, Spitting in Public's canceled. Spitting is so gross, guys. Spitting is gross.

It shouldn't get really up to out of our spit. It's like the one thing. It's my one-yuck. In, in Mobile, Alabama, the public health officers advised against kissing. They actually put out a, you couldn't like get arrested for kissing, but they would tell you like,

hey, stop that. Please don't. Don't kiss, it's dangerous. Kissing's dangerous. In San Francisco, they did mandate that you had to wear masks in public places. That was one of the few places that actually enforced it.

You know, a lot of places may have recommended it kind of like we have now, right? Like nobody's going to at least hear in West Virginia. I'm not going to get stopped on the street if I'm not wearing a mask. But it is recommended that I wear a mask and I would. And you should just I'm looking at you. I'm just just you and me in the room. I know. I don't need a mask. Well, not right now. I just mean, you know, if you're out, I wear a ring of. I'm just just you and me in the room. I know. I don't need a mask.

Well, not right now. I just mean, you know, if you're out. You know, I wear a runoff amount. I know you do. It's reinforcing. Yeah. I'm not even that creeped out when I see people wearing them like I used to be. So it's becoming, yeah, I think it's becoming more culturally.

I remember flying when we went to the, went on the cruise, getting to the airport. I remember seeing people in masks, and it kind of weirded me out. I'm wondering if, I bet that even after this is sorted, like you're still gonna see, I think that culturally we might move towards where some of the Asian countries where that's like a common courtesy. If you're sick, you wear a mask usually.

I think you're definitely right that masks are gonna become a lot more like accepted as, I mean, because it does, it did prior to this definitely stand out, I think in this country, if you were walking around with a mask on. Plus, if I didn't America, there's something you could put brands on,

we're gonna have a bajillion of them in different styles and colors and cuts. Yes, they are surface to me already. I don't know. Probably from the research I did on the mask episode, I get those surface to me a lot, those ads. So in San Francisco, this was mandated, and initially it was just for people who work in jobs

like customer facing kind of jobs, like a bank teller or a bartender had to wear a mask. But by the end of October, it was just a general mandate if you're out in public, you got to wear a mask, and you could face a fine, you could face jail time if you didn't comply. it was a big deal. Even the mayor actually, during a, even though he did believe in this

and supported this during a boxing match, he was photographed with his mask like hanging off of his ear, not wearing it. And he was fined $50 by the chief of police. I saw maybe, today today I made my my extremely rare shopping trip today and I saw so many people who had it like. I saw a woman who was working at the store pull down her mask to yell for someone else and then pull her mask back up. Literally half the masks below your

nose. Folks remember it's below your nose. It's not doing anything. That's right. Don't pull it. If a chin strap will not help you in the fight against coronavirus or anyone else, I should say the mass is really more for other people than you, which might, if you think about it as an altruistic thing, I don't know if that helps people maybe be a little more conscious of it, but yeah, it has to be covering your nose and your mouth the whole time while you're talking. And if you need to eat and drink, you shouldn't be doing that out in public where other people are. That's the, I mean, unfortunately, that's the thing right now.

Yeah. So don't you shouldn't pull it down. You shouldn't have it dangling off of your ear. And Mr. and because there was this, this mandate only lasted about a month initially. And then in January, they brought it back because of that second, that third wave, I should say that third spike of cases. In January, they went ahead and reissued the mandate

that you have to wear a mask in public. And this time, people were organized against it. They were mad about it the first time, and only lasted about a month. They didn't have enough time to like make signs, I guess. They needed some time. And so by January, they made some signs and they formed the anti-mask league

is what they were called. And they protested to the state government and said, like, the San Francisco is being unfair. I don't wanna wear masks this long. I brought it in and get stuck, it's terrible. That's not gonna be me. Even like now, there were doctors who supported them and were like, yeah, we shouldn't have to wear masks.

This is ridiculous. I see doctors saying that kind of stuff. I'm for it. There's bad apples in every profession. And there were people from other health department officials and other areas and from the council who were like, yeah, I don't want to wear a mask. It's individual rights. A lot of it was based in that.

This is our right as an American to expose everybody to viral particles flinging from my mouth when I talk. So the fight lasted about a month and it was like I said, it was a large anti-mask. These are like 4,000 people or something as part of this league who went and protested. There's just a good number of people to get that mad about having to wear a mask. I just love seeing people protesting in the lockdown now, wearing masks out about, like, okay, bud. I'm still trying to parse the guy

who was dressed as George Washington. Yeah, yeah, that was a look. Anyway, so there were protests, more people though agreed with the masks. And it did make an impact, because the majority of people did wear masks when they were pulled, the vast majority. And I think that's true today. These protests look big, depending on the camera angle they're being filmed from.

But the vast majority of people want to stay social distance and say, say, and don't want to risk their lives or their grandparents' lives to fix the stock market. If you're interested more about the anti-masculine, by the way, I got this tip from a Twitter thread from an NPR investigative reporter named Tim Mock. It was a really cool thread that really delves deep into this whole anti-masculine in the history of that in San Francisco. He's at Tim K. Mock in May. No, in case you're curious. in the history of that in San Francisco. He's at Tim K. Mock in May.

In case you're curious, that's where I found the tip off from it there, but he goes into way more detail. In various parts of the country, various responses, some places did really well with social distancing and wearing masks and with hygiene. There was a huge hygiene movement that came out of this. It was actually specifically targeted at men because men were seen as having like really poor personal hygiene because they didn't think it was manly. Like it was manly to walk around spitting and coughing on your sleeve and being grody.

And being like grody and booger covered or whatever. I don't know. Is that manly? Yeah, booger, booger's super man. Booger's dirty. Yeah. You're asking. You're asking a wrong cat about is that manly? Yeah, booger. Boogers super man. Boogers dirty. Yeah, you're asking. You're asking a wrong cat about what's manly. I'm sorry.

I can't have the wrong pod. I know that by now. But it, but there was actually a big movement target mainly it meant to like, hey, no, it's, it's cool. It's manly to wash your hands. It's manly not to spit. Be a, be a real man and protect others by wearing a mask. That was out and like even the boy scouts like God involved in this.

What if we put flames on it? But there was there was this big movement hygiene as a result of this and that kind of thing. But all things told the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 had a huge impact on human history. 500 million people, that's a third of the world's population, became infected. The estimated number of deaths was around 50 million worldwide, 675,000 in the United States. As I said, it was responsible for more deaths than World War One. And it changed, you know, I think certainly the course of human history,

it's been thought that perhaps Wilson had the flu. That's 10% mortality. That's a very bad flu. Yeah, it was a, well, it was a bad flu. And then also it was a, it was 100 years ago. So our ability to support somebody, you know, and treat someone who has this influenza. But still, no, it was a terrible, terrible influenza pandemic.

And you would hope that when you can look back on something like this in history and there, there are, while it is often called like the forgotten pandemic and stuff, it's been called that in enough books about it that I feel like we remember now. We remember it. It doesn't have to be forgotten. All this information that I used to create the show is based on articles that were written for the most part before what's happening now. I found like that Twitter thread that was that it's current that led me to research. But all of this was written before and the lessons that we're supposed to have learned have been laid out for us over the past 100 years.

And especially if you look to 2009 with H1N1 when we didn't know how bad it was going to be, you see a ton of academic work surrounding that, that's saying, that compares it to the Spanish flu and then looks forward and says, what can we do to prepare for when something like that happens again? And it's very frustrating to read that because all of this stuff we're talking about, you see the corollary in our life today. Yeah, but, see, that's just, I know where you're coming from, but Sid, that's just... I know where you're coming from,

but also that's just humans. That's just, it's like full me once, shame on me, for shame on you, for me twice. That was a hundred years ago. I don't know where I happened to that, the guy, full me again. I don't know, we'll see how it goes. I think that, we are incapable of actually preparing.

If we were to prepare for all the different worst-case scenarios in the way that we really should, that would be all that we do. That I'm saying, I know, maybe I'm, and I'm not being anti-science there, I'm just saying like, I don't think humans can, I just don't think we're good at that kind of thing. But in all these articles that I read,

the academic scientists, epidemiologists, medical doctors, public health officials, people who know these things, who are, who went to school, who paid to learn these things and are now paid to know these things and use these things in everyday life, they have been telling us that this was coming, not this exactly or at this time.

Yeah, but they weren't saying it was here. The other side. The nature of pandemic is that it's everywhere. Yeah, but they weren't, it wasn't happening yet. So it seemed like we still had some time. You know when you mean to buy salt for your driveway because it seems like it might so soon, but you're like, it has its node yet.

And then when you go to buy it, all the salt is gone, because it did snow, and everybody needs salt at the same time, I'm saying that's a situation we find ourselves in. This is not too skewed. This is not too skewed, the government for not preparing for this pandemic, when they saw it coming three months ago,

this is not what I'm saying. And we should have had preparedness plans in place. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that. Yes. If you look around the globe, a lot of people weren't great at preparing for this, a pandemic,

because I just don't think human beings worked that way. I still think we'd think that way. Well, maybe we need to start if we didn't with the last, you know, pandemics. That was a hundred years ago. But any match one in one was a giant warning. I mean, like, and a devastating warning. I mean, plenty of people died from age one in one.

Like it was a, yeah, but we dodged it. And then we got high off of that. We fell immortal. We felt so good. We got so hot. We got, we got hit with a bunch of serotonin from dot and adrenaline from dodging that bullet. We got so hot, we got hit with a bunch of serotonin from a adrenaline, from dodging that bullet.

Woo, never felt so alive, probably forgot about it because that's how humans are. That's just how we are. Our thought process by a lot of academics and during age one and one is that, like I said, we would be so much better prepared now because people would be more scientifically literate and they would understand the importance

of social distancing so much better. And you wouldn't have things like public officials who stand at a boxing match during a pandemic with their mask dangling off their ear. You wouldn't have those kinds of slip ups. You wouldn't have been Carson standing at the podium touching his face as he tells people not to touch their face.

You wouldn't have those kinds of things, it was the prediction. And that it would be so easy for everybody to social distance because certainly by the year 2020, we should have some sort of social safety net for the economy, for people who are living paycheck to paycheck so that it doesn't have to be that way. Child care and health insurance.

Now that, I wanna get out in front of that. Absolutely. You know I'm on board with that for sure. Right. I hope so. No argument there. Love, love healthcare. I think everybody should get it. But what I would say about this Facebook meme is that even though they've muddled the timeline a little bit and it wasn't quite that extreme, there is a lot we can draw from this pandemic and say, I've muddled the timeline a little bit and it wasn't quite that extreme.

There is a lot we can draw from this pandemic and say, look, we knew 100 years ago that these methods could be useful and indeed could keep us from having more cases that are necessary and from overwhelming our medical system, which saves lives because if everybody who needs one can get a ventilator, more people live.

Yes. If everybody who needs one can get a ventilator, more people live. Yes. You know, if everybody who needs one can be in a hospital, more people live. So there are lessons we could draw from and practice today. And I think that bending to political pressures and, you know, business interests, which is what a lot of this is coming from, right? From my mega wealthy business owners. I think we see the consequences of that. We can see that played out in different places around the country at the time.

One of the articles I was reading is from Kenneth C. Davis, who wrote more deadly than war, the hidden history of the Spanish flu in the First World War. And I was reading an article then again, this predates our current pandemic, but I found it very prescient. He talks about this was actually written, this article was written in 2018 on the eve of November 11th, the 100 years since the end of World War I. And he says there will be parades in public ceremonies highlighting the enormous losses and long-lasting impact of that global conflict, but it will also be a good moment to remember the damaging costs of short-sighted medical decisions shaped by politics during a pandemic that was more deadly than war.

And I just think, I think it's really important to remember that that this is a long game, keeping people alive and keeping them safe is a long game. And we can't just look to tomorrow, we have to look to what we're going to be doing for the next year until a hopefully an effective vaccine is available for everyone. And one thing we don't need to be doing is ingesting or injecting disinfectants.

Well, that took a weird turn at the end. That just happened, and I feel like it should be mentioned. We did a whole episode on not drinking bleach. I don't know if I specifically said don't inject bleach. Shouldn't inject bleach or any disinfectant. No. And if you see people talking about the hydrogen peroxide IV as evidence for that, that's also fake. I think we covered it on the hydrogen peroxide episode.

Fake. No, that is that is also a key sunlight. We've discussed. Yes. And the hydrogen peroxide IV therapy specifically is hugely dangerous. Please do not pursue that. Sunlight probably less dangerous, unless you're talking about standing out indirect sunlight for long periods of time without sunscreen, in which case it is dangerous. So you should wear sunscreen.

Is that all the nonsense we need to refute? I think so. For this week. For this week. Yeah, we should actually stop recording. So no, no nonsense comes onto the desk. I feel like it's happening. Please keep social distancing. Please keep staying home to protect those that you love. And even those you don't love, let's just protect it. Why

not, heck? Let's protect everybody right now. Please stick to that. I want to make a point because I feel like I'm and you circle back and there the rule. That I was talking about. I am not in any way trying to dismiss the lack of preparation from this administration, both their guards at current virus. I'm not in any way saying that. I'm saying that humanity is just bad at planning for worst case scenarios. But I think what the other part of that is, I feel like humanity, the more our best, can be really good at reacting to them when they happen. And that is, I think that's what's hard for me

to see now is seeing people who aren't answering that call and sort of like, okay, this is the trade-off for not being good at preparing for this stuff is we gotta be good at handling it. And I think that that's the least that any of us can do right now is try to rise to that. And that's what is frustrating to me. I think it's very true. And I think in a vacuum of leadership, unfortunately, that kind of, I mean, you don't know who to trust

and you don't know who to believe. Fauci, Anthony Fauci, is the answer. If you are looking for who to trust and you don't know who to believe. Fauci. Anthony Fauci is the answer. If you are looking for who to trust and who to believe. Yeah, just Fauci. Look to Anthony Fauci. Everyone please keep Anthony Fauci safe. That's going to do it for you.

You can put him somewhere with RBG. Yeah, that's going to do it for us, but about six feet away. That's going to do it for us for this, because you know the phone love. That's just how. That's going to do it for this, because you know the phone love. That's just how. That's gonna do for this. They're both happily married. You took, put two beautiful sexual people on a room, said.

I can't with this, no. Who are, who? Social distancing. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. Hope you're staying safe. Stay insane. And as much as it is possible.

Thanks to the taxpayers for using their song medicines as the intro and outro or a program. And thank you to you so much for listening. Especially in these times when there's so much Galbari Gokunonsense going on out there. Why don't you share the show with people? We would share appreciate it. The solboneshow.com is a good URL that you can use that takes us to the podcaster, share a link to iTunes, whatever podcasting thing you use.

And we were rating review, whatever we, we sure appreciate it. But that is going to do it for us for this week. So until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. As always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture

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