COVID-19 in the Commonwealth

<p>2020 was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic the most significant global pandemic since the ‘Spanish flu’ in 1918-1919. This book provides an analysis of the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in a range of Commonwealth countries during 2020 covering public health political economic and international aspects.</p><p>The Commonwealth within which about one quarter of the world’s population resides provides a cross-section of the global experience of COVID-19. The Commonwealth ranges from highly populated countries such as India and Nigeria to small island states and territories encompassing also advanced industrialised countries and developing countries. The grouping also extends into many different regions of the world: Africa South and Southeast Asia Europe the Americas and Oceania. In the first year of the pandemic vaccines were still under development and national response strategies chosen by Commonwealth countries were diverse spanning eradication elimination suppression and mitigation. The chapters in this book show the ways in which governments from a selection of Commonwealth countries responded to the multiple dimensions of the crisis pointing to the factors that led to effective or less effective policies.</p><p>This book originally appeared as a special issue of <i>The Round Table.</i></p>