Spanish Flu 1918

Viruses had only been discovered a few decades before this picture was taken. It's very likely that the family (and most of society) had no understanding that the virus was unlikely to jump species and so took the same precaution to keep the cat from spreading the disease that they themselves took. I'd rather people made this sort of mistake than the willful idiots we had this time around refusing to believe in viruses at all.

Or maybe they just thought it'd make a cute, silly family photo
I think that cat just has white fur on its face, that’s not a mask
- Yeah, I understand why everyone sees a mask, but I don’t think it is one either. You can see too much detail on the nose, I wouldn’t expect to see that much unless it was a very sheer fabric used for the mask.
- Of course not, but for a split second it looks like one, and that's funny. I laughed.
- The cat would be freaking out, I can't imagine how uncomfortable that would be considering their whiskers would be pressed against for so long.
  
  I literally can't imagine because I don't know what it feels like to have whiskers lol
- I love that most people seem to believe it's really wearing a mask 😷 😂 😺
Did you check whether cats can be an animal reservoir for influenza before posting this?
- Yeah, I knew dogs could carry Covid. Just looked it up and cats can carry the flu. Not sure why this poster felt it was necessary to say this about the family when it’s actually incorrect.
... willful idiots we had this time ...

Oh, there were plenty of those in 1918, too.
- It's a lot harder to be ignorant today. There's so much knowledge everywhere, and literacy rates are really high.

FYI the Spanish Flu's origin was a pig farm in Kansas.

The Spanish: WTF!?
- The only reason it was called the Spanish Flu was because they were trying to report accurate numbers when the rest of the world was lying for the war effort
How do we know that?
- Science.

In San Francisco there was a mask mandate, and roving groups of men would beat the shit out of anyone they saw without a mask on.

Like, they didn't really know about social distancing, but the went all out for masks.

I bet they took their wallets too, just to make sure the lesson stuck!
- Gimme your wallet, sheee. And put on a mask, sheee.
See, this is what we need to do to make America great again, beat the shit out of conservatives who go out of their way to endanger people over their beliefs.

If we would have just knocked the teeth out of any mouth without a mask over it we could have ended the pandemic in half the time.
- Removed. I don't disagree with the general hostility, but even 'jokingly' advocating violence is iffy ground. Please keep that in mind.
To be fair to them, work from home wasn't really possible back then and as much as I'd like for work to not be a requirment to live, it was and is. There were also basically no activities you could do without coming into contact with anyone else. Social distancing would be much harder for them.