How reminders of the 1918–19 pandemic helped Australia and New Zealand respond to COVID-19

Geoffrey W. Rice

Journal of Global History, 2020, vol. 15, issue 3, 421-433

Abstract: This article will argue that the memory of the great ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918–19 played a significant role in the preparedness and response of Australia and New Zealand to the COVID-19 pandemic, and may help to explain their success compared with Europe and North America. An obvious alternative explanation for the success of Asian states such as China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan would be their experience of the SARS outbreak in 2002 and the H7N9 influenza outbreak of 2013. However, this explanation does not apply to Australia or New Zealand. All of these states had pandemic plans, initially developed with encouragement from the World Health Organization after the SARS outbreak, but only Australia and New Zealand appear to have directly incorporated ‘lessons’ from 1918–19 into their pandemic plans.

Date: 2020
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