9. Japan implemented trade restrictions to quarantine its home islands
Across the Pacific, the death toll from the flu mounted. New Zealand saw about 8,500 deaths, with the native Maori population much harder hit than those of European descent, largely due to their more crowded living conditions. Tonga, a British possession, saw about 8,000 fatalities. Nauru was captured by the Germans during the war by Australian troops, and a ship from New Zealand brought the flu to the island near the end of the pandemic, in 1920, resulting in a death rate of almost 20%. Fiji, also under British control, lost about 9,000 of its native population to the disease, a fatality rate of approximately 5%. British authorities implemented strict quarantines of the ill, isolating them from the Europeans on the island.
As the disease ravaged the Pacific islands, the Japanese government returned to the policy of isolation which they had followed in the 19th century. Japanese ports were closed to foreign ships and even interaction between the home islands was curtailed. Although more than a quarter of a million Japanese died from the flu during the pandemic, their death rate was nonetheless considerably lower than the other countries of Asia and the western Pacific. After July 1919, when shipping to and from the islands was curtailed, the rate dropped dramatically. The territories of the British Empire protested the financial losses due to the restriction of trade, but the Japanese actions protected most of its population from the worst of the pandemic, and Japanese deaths were well under 1% of the total population.