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.
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.
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.
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
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.