evidence: That lesson was outlined in a 2007 pandemic preparedness study from researchers at the University of Michigan’s Center for the History of Medicine who teamed up with colleagues at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their goal: to understand how social distancing and quarantine efforts during the devastating 1918-1919 influenza pandemic affected death rates in US cities. Data from 43 large US cities spanning September 8, 1918, through February 22, 1919, showed that nonpharmaceutical interventions—a traditional term for social distancing practices like closing schools and banning large public gatherings—could prevent influenza deaths. In the study, the pandemic took a lesser toll on cities that implemented these interventions earlier and for longer periods. [...] Dr Markel:Face masks were the big thing, and there was a shortage of surgical face masks, which were then made of gauze. There were a lot of American Red Cross chapters, mostly of women who volunteered for the war effort and fashioned face masks out of gauze or linen or whatever material they had. There were articles in the newspaper about some women who wore fashionable face masks made out of chiffon. There were all sorts of stories about this mask or that mask but of course these masks were so porous, so it’s highly doubtful they gave much protection.