• sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    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.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        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.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        The cat would be freaking out, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable that would be considering their whiskers would be pressed against for so long.

        I literally can’t imagine because I don’t know what it feels like to have whiskers lol

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      9 months ago

      Did you check whether cats can be an animal reservoir for influenza before posting this?

      • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        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.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      … willful idiots we had this time …

      Oh, there were plenty of those in 1918, too.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        It’s a lot harder to be ignorant today. There’s so much knowledge everywhere, and literacy rates are really high.

        • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          It’s a lot harder to be ignorant today.

          Florida people: “That sounds like a challenge.”

        • Kiosade@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Counterpoint: it’s actually not that hard, because of echo chambers and the algorithms pushing/feeding those echo chambers. Just because people are actually able to read and write more nowadays doesn’t mean critical thinking has improved a lot too.