Talk:1789 Sydney smallpox outbreak

Do we need this page?

There is now a comprehensive account of this issue at the page [[Smallpox in Australia]. This was set up to consolidate the information that had been previously scattered over a number of sites, many of which were too brief or tangential to cover the complex debates among historians and epidemiologists about how and when smallpox came to Australia.

The information on this tiny site seems inadequate. It is also sometimes dubious, like its loose quotation of the National Museum's site re a possible 70% mortality, or plain wrong like its statement that smallpox swept through Aboriginal and colonial Australians. (In fact the effect of the outbreak was exactly the opposite. It selectively killed Aborigines but it was not recorded as affecting any Europeans.)

I have not bothered with fixing these errors, since it was simpler to put in a redirection to

Further information: Smallpox in Australia § Outbreak of 1789

Perhaps the whole site should be replaced with a redirection? Marcasella (talk) 23:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)