Masks encouraged. Schools closed. Churches closed. Public gatherings prohibited. Stores, restaurants, and other places of businesses ordered to close early. These bans, placed into effect in the fall of 1918, were to help limit and contain the spread of the Spanish Influenza. Eerily, 100 years later, the same bans with a modern twist (virtual learning, virtual church, social distancing, Zoom meetings) were put in place to help limit the spread of Covid-19, a deadly, highly contagious, and rapidly mutating coronavirus. A disease expected to be gone by April 2020 has taken root and still has us in its grasp.
