There is just so much material on this special feature page of History and Policy. Titled ‘Pandemics, Quarantine and Public Health’, it features a number of essays written by historians about current events, with a slant towards the situation in England. Some of them are policy papers, others are opinion pieces but either way….there’s hours of fascinating reading here!
This is what you can find on this page as of May 24 (and it seems to be updated quite frequently). Even the issues that are being raised at different times mark the arc of concern during the pandemic:
- COVID and the UK National Debt in historical context
- The real lessons of the Blitz for COVID 19
- Call it what it is: supermarket rationing
- Loosening lockdown: lessons from the blackout
- COVID is not a Black Swan: predictable shocks need fully-funded, resilient public services
- The need for a new National Food Policy: food supply problems during National Emergencies
- Public Enemy Number One: terrorism, security and COVID 19
- Soldiering a Pandemic: the threat of militarized rhetoric in addressing COVID 19
- A matter of life and death: football, conflict and the coronavirus
- Hospital visiting in epidemics: an old debate reopened
- On infection parties, herd immunity and other half-truths
- Does Coronavirus spell the end of neoliberalism?
- COVID 19 and the 1919 Spanish ‘flu’: differences give us a measured hope
- Epidemic control and Chinese public health: past and present
- Epidemics and ‘essential work’ in Early Modern Europe
- Blitz spirit wont help ‘Win the Fight’ against COVID
- Quarantine – an Early Modern approach.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 