1918 flu pandemic, not wearing a mask was illegal

When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit Asia, people across the region were quick to wear masks. Adoption has been far slower in the West, however, with England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty among a number of leading health officials to say that wearing them is unnecessary.

Yet wearing masks in public hasn't always been an Asian proclivity.

It certainly wasn't during the influenza pandemic of 1918, which lasted from January of that year to December 1920, and infected a third of the world's population, or about 500 million people, leading to about 50 million deaths -- about half a million of which were in the United States.

Back then, it was the US that led the world in mask wearing, with the measure becoming mandatory there for the first time.

History repeated in California: After San Francisco made masks mandatory in public in October 1918, an awareness campaign began.

The campaign worked and other Californian cities followed suit, including Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, followed by states across the US.

In a case of history repeating itself, this week the mayor of Los Angeles asked people to wear masks when shopping in public.

So what changed? A century later, it is Asian countries that have adhered to the lessons the US learned about the benefits of mask wearing in slowing the spread of infection.

Perhaps that is because in the intervening years, Asia has dealt with ongoing outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other transmittable diseases, right up to SARS in 2003 and avian flu more recently.

Those outbreaks have helped to maintain a mask-wearing culture. America and Europe have not seen similar outbreaks with such regularity.