Being an island has often proved a health benefit in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, after a year of the pandemic, virtually the only COVID-free countries are island states and territories. While both Australia and South Korea have fared well by global standards, their island provinces, Jeju and Tasmania done even better. The small island states of the South Pacific region leveraged their insularity by swiftly closing borders, tough quarantine, social distancing and public health measures when a pandemic was declared. Their marine moat contributed significantly to health security for these islands but at great cost to their fragile economies especially those with some dependence on tourism. Vaccines promise the opportunity to reopen borders to international commerce and traffic. However, the transition out of the pandemic will less swift and less secure than the initial dramatic first response. The apparent inevitability of COVID becoming an endemic disease will require ongoing public health measures as well as political decisions at the level of individual countries as when decide their pandemic measures can be relaxed. Travel bubbles are touted as a likely transitional stage for the global recovery but these have proved more aspirational than practical thus far. Post-COVID financial revitalisation will even more challenging for small island states. It is here that both Jeju and Tasmania can assist their national government in meeting the needs of the Pacific’s small island states. They have relevant island-adapted human and physical technologies that, if recognised and mobilised, could make appropriate niche recovery aid more effective.