The Founding Fathers Would’ve Been Pro-Face Mask
The country has a long history of using blunt measures to stop disease, although the Covid-19 lockdowns might have been too much for Washington’s cabinet.
Three science guys.
Source: Three Lions/Hulton Archive
During a smallpox outbreak in March 1662, officials in East Hampton, near the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island,1 tried to cut off movement between the town and surrounding Indian villages. “It is ordered that no Indian shall come to towne into the street after sufficient notice upon penalty of 5s. or be whipped until they be free of the smallpoxe,” they decreed. Town residents who visited nearby “wigwams” were to suffer the same punishment.
Year-round residents of East Hampton might have welcomed such a restriction this March, when rich New Yorkers fled the city for their summer homes in the Hamptons and elsewhere, in some cases bringing the new coronavirus with them. Now, the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are requiring travelers from 22 states where Covid-19 is on the rise to self-quarantine for 14 days after arrival. No whippings await those who flout the rules, but a fine of up to $10,000 might.