Australian Aboriginal Community Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Authors

  • Rosalie Schultz Centre for Remote Health, Flinders University

Keywords:

COVID-19, Aboriginal, Indigenous, Australia, pandemic, remote, empowerment

Abstract

Australian Aboriginal communities planned our initial response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as we saw the devastating impacts of outbreaks in parts of Europe and the U.S. Community education and coalition-building led to a response focused on empowerment and guidance for government investment that was proportionate to the potential of the crisis. Travel bans and enforced isolation of visitors were the key mechanisms to keep COVID-19 out of communities. By preventing entry of people infected with COVID-19 into Aboriginal communities, hygiene and physical distancing were less important to stop spread of infection.

In June 2020, Australia appears to have controlled community transmission of COVID-19. However, in the longer term the risk of entry of COVID-19 to Aboriginal communities remains because of ongoing colonization, racism, and social disadvantage.

Downloads

Published

2020-09-18

How to Cite

Schultz, R. (2020). Australian Aboriginal Community Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic . Social Innovations Journal, 3. Retrieved from https://socialinnovationsjournal.com/index.php/sij/article/view/417

Issue

Vol. 3 (2020): Social Accountability and Accreditation; Interprofessional Education and Team Based Care; and Population Health Approaches to Global Health Access and Equitable Health

Section

Equity and Justice

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Social Innovations Journal

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Social Innovations Journal permits the Creative Commons License:

CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

Under the following terms:

  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:

  • You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
  • No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material

Copyright and Publishing Rights

For the licenses indicated above, authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.