Romola Davenport
When the covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020 there was no stockpile of coronavirus vaccines, and no cure. Instead, governments were forced to fall back on a repertoire of very traditional measures to control epidemics: surveillance, lockdowns, quarantines, and cordons sanitaire. To many people’s surprise, these measures were quite effective in the early stages of the pandemic. Countries that implemented strict quarantines, such as Australia and New Zealand, avoided large outbreaks. In countries with high levels of infection, lockdowns were followed by falling case numbers and deaths.
Did similar strategies help to control other infectious diseases in the past, before vaccines and antibiotics?
Alice Reid
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died on 8th September 2022. Aged 96, her death certificate gave her cause of death as simply ‘Old Age’. It’s undeniable that she was old when she died, but how common is old age as a cause of death now and in the past, and what can the history of death from old age tell us?
© 2026 University of Cambridge
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure