As a clinical immunologist with a research interest in mucosal immunology and airway infection, the Covid-19 pandemic became a point of convergence for my interests in medicine, research and history.

A pattern of confusion had evolved in Australian pandemics in the 20th century, followed by a science-based rebound led by great Australians such as Ashburton Thompson with plague in 1900 and, Macfarlane Burnet and Peter Doherty with influenza in 1919, 1957,1968 and Frank Fenner and eradication of smallpox in 1980.