Lockdown sparks polio memories

One thing we can learn from history is that it does tend to repeat itself.

Lockdown inspired 80-year-old polio survivor Jan Wills-collins in Whangamata to write and publish her memoirs entitled The Hidden Scars of Polio.

The retired nurse and health and safety adviser said, “I felt this might have the potential to help others who are suffering from Covid today.”

Played out through the first half of the 20th century, the polio virus peaked at 350,000 cases in more than 33 endemic countries.

Polio mainly affected children and led in many cases to irreversible paralysis.

Hope came in the race to develop a vaccine, developed in 1955 by US scientist Jonas Salk, 39, and his team at the University of Pittsburgh.