Over the past two years, historians and analysts have compared the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic. Eventually anti-maskers and an improving epidemic situation combined to end the "masked" city's second round of mask and public health mandates. Overall, nearly 675,000 Americans died during the 1918-19 flu pandemic, the majority during the second wave in the autumn of 1918. Worldwide estimates differ, but on the order of 50 million probably died in the flu pandemic. Public health officials also may be repeating the mistakes of the past.
