Media: BOOK - paperback, 280 pages
Author: I. Shaw
Year: 2020
ISBN: 9781925868449
Other: b&w photos, appendix, bibliog
Publisher: Woodslane Press

Between January 1919 and March 1920, two waves of Spanish flu swept across Australia, touching every settlement from the bottom of Tasmania to the tip of Cape York and from Byron Bay in the east to Broome in the west. 

At least 15,000 people died and many more were incapacitated but medical and health specialists, by literally putting their lives on the line, saved countless more and gave Australia a template for what was to come at the country exactly a century later.

This book tells the story of the Australian experience of the Spanish Flu and of those who fought it and sometimes lost their lives to it. 

It also illustrates many striking parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, including intense interstate rivalries, personal heroics, frequent confusion and incompetence, and widespread economic disruption.

Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Incubation
2. Prophylaxis
3. An Ounce of Prevention
4. Woodman's Point
5. Hiatus: December 1918-January 1919
6. Public Plicy, Private Plan
7. New South Wales: The Heart of the Matter
8. Victoria: A State of (some) Denial
9. South Australia: A Big Picnic and a Little Mutiny
10. Queensland: A Little Late, a Little Light
11. Western Australia: friction at the Edges
13. Post-mortem
Appendix: The Long Voyage on the 'Boonah'
Endnotes
References