1948: Polio School Holiday

July 19, 2021

By AHNZ

Poliovirus once ravaged New Zealand with periodic epidemics, paralising our children for life if not killing them. The most deaths in one year were in 1925, when 173 people died. We’ve had multiple epidemics, thousands of cases, hundreds of deaths and all before our population reached 2 million. In 1947 an epidemic was so bad that schools were closed early and not opened again until April 1948.

At that time the central government, Labour 1.0, gave the nation’s children a reprieve from their compulsory ‘education’. The 1947 year wound up early and was not to resume again until March, then, finally, April 19th. The little Boomers got a Polio School Holiday but there was no mass treatment plan.

No lockdowns, no masks, no vaccines, no cures, no quarantines; Just a school holiday. The epidemic ran its course, people changed their attitude to hygiene, and the danger passed once again. Auckland harbors, in particular, were noted for being unsafe for swimming or for harvesting shellfish due to the government’s scheme to pump sewage into the waterways (ref. 1947: Waters of the Waitemata.)

It may also be worth considering a government-created mass infection risk of children in early 1947 could have had something to do with this outbreak. From Feb 1 1947, Labour 1.0 socialised dentistry for everyone up to the age of 16. Thousands of applications streamed in and the government contractors hurried to keep up with the demand. Perhaps the quality of the service, and hygiene practices, suffered in the crush to circulate children in and out of the government clinics as quickly as possible? And perhaps, too, the customer became more careless in looking after themselves because they believed the government would fix their problems for free. I’ve not read any such accusations in the sources but it’s not the sort of thing government historians would wish to record. Some parents in 1947 must have looked at the correlation between the clinics and the polio and wondered about causation.  Ref. 1947: Socialised Dentistry for Kids

By September 1948 it was clear the epidemic was over, clearing the way for the first Christchurch Santa Parade that Christmas. The trouble was that, as before, polio epidemics would visit us again in the 1950s.

Voluntary vaccination is credited with ending not just the 1950s epidemics but further polio epidemics in New Zealand.

“By the end of 1959, 80% of all children and young people between six months and twenty-one years had been vaccinated. In 1961 the Sabin oral vaccine became available. As a demonstration of confidence in and support for the programme, I remember parading with my Cabinet colleagues outside Parliament Buildings and drinking the vaccine out of a disposable paper cup. By 1962 most of the population had accepted the offer of free treatment. We have had no epidemic since- a quiet, but decisive victory of medical science and public health administration over a deadly and crippling disease. The 1925 polio epidemic took its tragic course and tapered off, as epidemics do.” – p28 John Marshall Memoirs vol1, Marshall (1983)

“The Ministers of Health, Mabel Howard, and Education, Terry McCombs, announced in late-February 1948 that schools would reopen on March 1. But just days after the announcement, when faced with continuing new cases and protests by worried parents writing to the Herald, the Government backtracked, re-imposing the ban at central and some south Auckland schools…In April, the Government said all schools closed by the epidemic, except…would reopen on April 19. ” – NZ Herald (2018)

“Their son was taken to the doctor with flu-like symptoms and this was during the polio epidemic . It was reported in the newspaper as a suspected case of polio at Clarkville of this 10 month old boy. Our phone was red hot with folks thinking Brent was the only male child of that age in the district (the Wearing family had not joined in with district functions so little was know about them.) Brent was fine seems the child only had the flu as his parents had first thought. We all had a few months at home doing correspondent schooling till the all clear was given. That was 1947 the year the Queen was married.” – Family history, AHNZ Archive; Ref. also 1947: Prince Philip

1927: Polio struck Canterbury
-27 deaths, some 100 crippled. Ref. The Great Wrong War, Eldred-Grigg (1982)

“Indications are that New Zealand was, during this r-selected time period, not internalising hygiene and health.” – 1946: Don’t Spit

The horrors of polio were well known to New Zealanders. They needed no media spin to convince them the threat was real because they lived with it and its aftermath. Nor did we need to be forced to vaccinate. It was all done by voluntary consent and it worked.

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Note: The Government did run a printing scam where they created green canvas envelopes full of school work to children during the holiday. Many didn’t bother and they were wise to have ignored the packet of exercises because it went unmarked and ignored.

Image ref. Howard saving the children; FAIRFAX NZ

Image ref. Government workers access hardware database of parental consent cards for 36,000 children to be vaccinated against polio in 1957; NZ Herald Archives

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