History Repeating Itself
   
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Anti-Mask Movement
The Mask Slackers of 1918.  "As the influenza pandemic swept across the United States in 1918 and 1919, masks took a role in political and cultural wars." 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/us/mask-protests-1918.html 
 
People Gave Up on Flu Pandemic Measures a Century Ago When They Tired of Them – and Paid a Price
The deadly third wave of the 1918 flu shows what can happen when society prematurely returns to pre-pandemic life, a medical historian cautions. MIchigna Health. Apr. 1, 2021.
https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/people-gave-up-on-flu-pandemic-measures-a-century-ago-when-they-tired-of-them

Personel Freedom Over Societal Safety
"A difficulty in dealing with infectious diseases in America was the rooted dislike to the curtailment of the personal liberty of the citizen for the benefit of the people at large. "   BMJ.  July 1, 1893  https://www.bmj.com/content/2/1696/21.full.pdf 
  
Anti-Vaccination Movement
"Smallpox and the Anti-vaccination Leagues in England
The rationale for this criticism varied, and included sanitary, religious, scientific, and political objections."   https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles
/history-anti-vaccination-movements  
    
And once I perceived those parallels, my excitement became an epiphany when I realized that the same general pattern of arguments—a denialist playbook—has been deployed to reject other scientific consensuses from the health effects of tobacco to the existence and causes of climate change. The same playbook is now being used to deny facts concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-denialist-playbook/  
     
Supression of Data
"One of the most important is that when infections spiral out of control, governments worry too much about avoiding accountability, often downplaying the severity of an outbreak until it is too late."  Los Angeles Times.  April 19, 2020.   https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-kavanagh-epidemics-health-public-policy-20190516-story.html