When the Spanish flu pandemic reached Australia in 1919, a quarantine camp set up in Adelaide was more a party than a chore, according to written accounts.
There were others, however, who played"hide and seek" with police, including throwing parcels over the fence to people outside, sneaking through a neutral zone in an effort to get to the gates, or even talking with friends through a hole in the fence.
Such activities did not impress the Central Board of Health chairman Dr Ramsay Smith, who had helped to bring the South Australians back from Victoria — where 16 deaths had been recorded at the time — despite it being perceived by many as a"considerable risk to the state". "These people seem to have no sense of their legal, moral, or social obligations, and no true conception of the conditions on which they have been admitted into this state," he was quoted as saying."Under the bond they signed, they are liable to be put in quarantine in any place that may be found necessary, and they may find themselves somewhere where they may look out for a cow and try to procure seed potatoes," Dr Smith said.
Although no one at Jubilee Oval ended up having Spanish flu, many other South Australians did, and 540 died — a figure some historians believe would translate relatively to about 15,000 people in today's population.
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