A tale of two island nations: Lessons for crisis knowledge management

When confronted with the Black Death in the middle ages, leading authorities resorted to analysis of the position of the planets —Jupiter’s hostility against Mars features prominently— to explain the plague. Today, authorities rely mainly on science to explain and manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of this is borne out in countries such as Germany and New Zealand, both of which have managed to control the pandemic. In particular, in New Zealand the virus is eradicated after causing 21 deaths altogether (4 fatalities per million people).