Public Health Experts are Embarrassing Themselves

For several months, epidemiologists have been warning about the dangers of coronavirus spread from large gatherings, including large outdoor gatherings. Much has been made, in particular, of the cautionary example of a big war bond rally held in Philadelphia in September 1918. Philadelphia’s failure to cancel that rally as the flu epidemic hit is said to be responsible for thousands of additional deaths; St. Louis, which canceled its planned rally, suffered many fewer flu deaths. The Philadelphia rally attracted some 200,000 people, far fewer than have attended the recent protests (though, to my knowledge, no individual protest rally has attracted