Wearing face masks and staying 6 feet apart was also recommended during the 1918 flu epidemic in the Twin Cities (the 6 feet exactly figure was surprising to me): https://www.influenzaarchive.org/f/flu/cities/city-stpaul.html#

Same concerns. "Simon sarcastically told the Medical Society that if the safety zone was implemented, members should prepare for their hair to grow long and to do their own shaving,"

I imagine this will be similar when businesses open up again: "As people walked the streets and passed the re-opened theaters, they stopped in disbelief..."

"As one newspaper put it, the crowds 'hesitated, still uncertain as to whether or not one huge joke was in the process of being perpetrated, walked up to the cashier’s cage, and then, satisfied that it was all true, entered joyously.'"

Another similarity - labor strikes! "As Twin Cities’ residents celebrated the end of the closure orders and the (hopeful) end of the epidemic, they quickly found themselves facing a new problem: a strike by local telephone operators. "

The two cities had different approaches to the epidemic, and it showed in the fatalities: "through the end of February 1919, Minneapolis had an excess death rate of 267 per 100,000, while St. Paul had a number nearly 55 percent higher: 413 per 100,000. "

As it says in the article, Minneapolis closed businesses earlier and for a longer period than did St. Paul. Very interesting.

A really good read; check out the city index to see if they have articles on yours.

For MN they also have a separate article on Minneapolis. https://www.influenzaarchive.org/f/flu/cities/index.html

There was a big legal battle in Minneapolis over who had the jurisdiction to close schools, and whether that was the right thing to do. https://www.influenzaarchive.org/f/flu/cities/city-minneapolis.html#

A literal "oh snap!" moment in 1918. The officials were getting testy!!! "[Health Comm] Guilford threw down the gauntlet: 'The direct snapping of the fingers of the board of education in the face of the health department is a matter that requires the attention of the courts.'"

- Board of Health Exec Officer Bracken to Mpls City Council: "'If you really want my opinion, the time to have asked for it was before you acted, not after,' he tartly responded. It was only the opening salvo in what soon became a complete dressing down of Mpls officials."

I do love a good dressing down.

(And a good dressing gown. But that's a different topic entirely.)

It turns out the Minneapolis and Saint Paul articles are the same but each one has its own unique event timeline, which is quite detailed.

What's the point of all this?
"After an intense, year-long examination of the public health response of 43 American cities during the 1918-1919 epidemic," +

"researchers...concluded that those cities that used social distancing measures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions in 1918 fared better than those that did not."

https://www.influenzaarchive.org/f/flu/about.html

This isn't a surprise but it's still nice to see data backing that up, and offering it packaged in these essays that give a lot of details from primary sources written at the time.

Also the huge list of archives in the acknowledgements section made me smile. Couldn't do this without archives, especially newspapers.

https://www.influenzaarchive.org/about.html 

In conclusion, support your local newspaper while you still have one.