The Prioritization of Island Nations as Refuges from Extreme Pandemics

AbstractIn this conceptual article with illustrative data, we suggest that it is useful to rank island nations as potential refuges for ensuring long ‐term human survival in the face of catastrophic pandemics (or other relevant existential threats). Prioritization could identify the several island nations that are most suitable for targeting social and political preparations and further investment in resiliency. We outline a prioritization meth odology and as an initial demonstration, we then provide example rankings by considering 20 sovereign island states (all with populations greater than 250,000 and no land borders). Results describe each nation in nine resilience‐relevant domains covering location, population, resources, and societ y according to published data. The results indicate that the most suitable island nations for refuge status are Australia, followed closely by New Zealand, and then Iceland, with other nations all well behind (including the relatively high‐income ones of Malta and Japan). Nevertheless, some key co ntextual factors remain relatively unexplored. These include the capacity of the jurisdiction to rapidly close its borders when the emerging threat was first detected elsewhere, and whether or not large subnational islands should be the preferred focus for refuge design (e.g., the Australian state o f Tasmania, the island of Hokkaido in Japan, or the South Island of New Zealand). Overall, this work provides conceptual thinking with some initia...
Source: Risk Analysis - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Original Research Article Source Type: research