Christmas in Britain during the Spanish Flu ...

[dogtag]

At least the war was over so it was just the flu killing people.
The people were tougher back then it seems and the government
less dictatorial.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-decision.html

Thought provoking to realize that maybe only one or two
of all those people in the photos might be still alive.

[Roadkingtrax]

Government is always dictatorial.

[Vern Humphrey]

The US Government, harking back to an old superstition that diseases were caused by smells, advised people to wear sachets of asafoetida, a VERY strong-smelling herb. You could buy them in drug stores, already made up.

[Mark in Ottawa]

For what it's worth, the Spanish Flu epidemic ended when the virus suddenly mutated into a more or less benign form. As another point of trivia, the epidemic got named "Spanish Flu" because the Spanish Government was apparently the only government that was open about what was happening. Almost everybody else in Europe was involved in WWI and was afraid that giving out information on the epidemic would provide usefull intelligence to their enemies. I understand that the origins of that virus are thought to be in eastern Russia, certainly not in Spain