Many people were angry because public health officials mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It turns out that it was not such a radical idea; mask wearing in public had been mandated before—during the Spanish flu in 1918. I was doing research for the cover story this month, and I came across the public health poster shown here.
There was no Tamiflu or vaccines, and hospitals were overrun by sick patients. So, public health officials turned to mitigation: mask