AustLit

'When thinking about the focus of this issue of Axon on ‘natural, environmental and epidemiological disasters’ it would be hard to go past COVID-19, not only because of its topicality but because it fits all three adjectives. The possible exception is ‘environmental’: while the virus is a feature of the very air we breathe, in many parts of the world it has reduced air pollution and opened up previously prohibited spaces to the animal kingdom. Monkeys run amok in Thai towns, dolphins leap higher than normal in the ship-free Mediterranean around Malta. For almost anyone alive today the virological crisis is the most extraordinary experience of their lives — arguably more threatening than any of the wars with which it is analogised.' (Introduction)