The author applies the formula of The Big Short to the covid pandemic.

My jaw dropped when he describes hospitals not using a free (and fast) university testing lab and all the reasons that lead to it.

For a book that the author himself confesses is opportunistic and a field out of his traditional expertise, I found the book incredibly captivating.

I had expected more cheap trump bashing, but no, the author really takes a system perspective, inspecting the role of political appointees to replace career experts, the causes behind institutional risk aversion, the shift from television to everyone-is-a-broadcaster and many similar phenomenon.

The book also taught me stuff on how genomic sequencing was a game changer and other advances in the public health that you do not notice while following the daily news cycle.

Useful and captivating.

In a few years back, I think this book will remain relevant. I believe the author managed to elevate it to something more than an opportunistic boom of the moment. ( )

Healthcare researchers will mine stories about the COVID pandemic for decades to come. It stretched both American and global society to their limits to a degree not seen since the flu pandemic of 1918. Many expected federal coordination of the response, but they swiftly became disappointed. Both the White House and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) left the pandemic looking really bad, and I suspect history’s judgment upon each will only worsen with time. Yet a few individuals were able to foresee what havoc a pandemic could raise, and when it first started, they acted to limit its effect. Writer Michael Lewis shares and weaves their individual stories here to personalize the science behind the pandemic response in a way that relates to the common American reader.

The characters highlighted in this book vary from an evangelical-turned-public-health-official and a White House official/physician under George W. Bush to a grade-school student making a pandemic computer model for a science fair project and a CDC nurse dedicated to the public’s welfare. Their stories at first seem quite disconnected, but they come together in a beautiful way. This book puts to rest the popular myths that no one could have foreseen a pandemic and that no individuals could have mitigated its spread in America. These people did both. By putting their time, careers, and lives on the line, they courageously woke up to history’s call upon their lives while growing disillusioned with American political stagnation.

By way of criticism, Lewis’ story starts with a lot of “us versus them” sentiments, with “them” being the biomedical establishment personified especially by the CDC. In the first couple of chapters, he generally devalues academic research, even before the pandemic, as ineffectual. Yet much of the “wartime” pandemic response relied extensively upon this type of “peacetime” academic research. The problem wasn’t the research. Rather, in this crisis, there were no “generals” in power willing to leverage this knowledge towards practical aims.

Also, this story has a lot of effective buildup and can be cast as a history of science about current events, if that makes any sense. But as a weakness, it doesn’t have a particularly strong climax. The book was published in 2021, far before the end of the pandemic. That early date shows. I’m sure it gathered readers because of this timeliness, but I predict it’s not going to age particularly well. There’s a lot to the pandemic’s story that happened after publication, and the climax probably happened after the book went to market. That’s unfortunate.

Nonetheless, this book provides an interesting investigation into the events of the pandemic. It clearly shows how individuals still hold some power even when the government’s attention is absent. It also clearly reminds me how the value of my fellow Americans can be leveraged… if only leaders were willing to lead. I’m sure readers with public health interests will benefit from these personal investigations. It will inspire many about the power of the average, dutiful, but curious American. ( )

Fascinating but infuriating because of all the mismanagement (and greed) that resulted in so many deaths. On the bright side, there is comfort in reading that there are still smart, brave people who are willing to go above and beyond to do what is right. ( )

Should be required reading! ( )

I read this book faster than I read most novels. It was so well-written with such fascinating real-life characters and improbable, seemingly unsolvable situations. For people who don't think they want to read nonfiction, think of a Michael Crichton novel with the emphasis on technology, medical emergencies and scientific research.
Unfortunately, it is not fiction. I can only hope that people who read it will be appalled at the way in which politics and for-profit enterprises have weakened the ability of qualified, competent government employees to handle and solve problems for which they are trained and employed. As Richard Hatchett is quoted near the end of the book, "Government--and the value government provides--isn't just the whim of whoever happens to be elected at the moment...That government provides continuity across administrations and should be the repository of accumulated institutional experience and wisdom."
Health care decisions should not be made based on one's political views and should not be funded in order to make money for corporations. ( )