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4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
One sentence review: I got this from the library and as I finished it I bought it as a Kindle book so I could let everyone in my family read it. Okay two sentences: read this book!!!!!
A very good book exposing the difficulties the bureaucracy, e.g. the CDC, has in making decisions in the face of uncertainty. But there is a lot left out. Like how the vaccines were developed and distributed, how decisions were made based on the droplet model and how we assumed surface contamination was significant, how respirators were selected and we ended up with the medical paper masks and bandanas instead of N95s. So much went wrong I hope we writes a sequel to give a fuller picture.
A first draft of how the United States government and health industry prepared for and ultimately handled its response to COVID-19. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well. True to form, Lewis documents the shit-show by focusing on the neglected and ignored figures who did what they could in the face of widespread institutional failure.
Another master class in non-fiction writing from Michael Lewis. Clear, compelling, eye opening.
This look behind the scenes of the years leading up to the pandemic and into it's earliest months does not shine a favorable light on the United States of America.
This look behind the scenes of the years leading up to the pandemic and into it's earliest months does not shine a favorable light on the United States of America.
DNF @ 30% it wasn’t bad. It hit too close to home. I’m still hurting from lockdown.
Another good one by Lewis
Probably my favorite non tech journalist. Lewis always tells a good, honest and accurate story. I was introduced to Liars Poker over a decade ago and have followed him since. You kind of want there to be a second volume of this that covers the vaccination story as well.
Probably my favorite non tech journalist. Lewis always tells a good, honest and accurate story. I was introduced to Liars Poker over a decade ago and have followed him since. You kind of want there to be a second volume of this that covers the vaccination story as well.
True rating: maybe leaning more towards 4.5? So rounding down!
I was a little skeptical about reading this, but had heard good things about it; it seemed a little strange to me to read about the pandemic while it’s still ongoing. So it convinced me to read it when I read an excerpt and was pleasantly surprised to realize that the book focused more on US pandemic response as a whole, taking from the perspective of health officials and scientists, and stemming from the Bush administration.
The narrative written is jarring and riveting, and exposes a lot of truths about the downfalls of bureaucracy and risk-adverse public action. While I understand the role of institutions like the NIH and CDC, it’s true that they operate best as research institutions, which makes their primary role in setting pandemic standards a little frustrating (at best) and potentially harmful. It was a little shocking to me to recall past action towards illnesses like swine flu and recognize the repeating actions, despite advances in science and technology, and the information of actual illness experts. It’s damning and illuminating, and doesn’t lay the blame at political lines or between presidency regimes.
What I did find frustrating, however, is that as the book leads up to the current COVID pandemic, it feels a little bit like being in the fire zone that Lewis uses as a metaphor - we can see the issues, the lack of public action, the over-million casualties - but there’s still not much to be said about what having this information/reading this book does for the general public. How can we better protect each other and ourselves, when the guidance isn’t clear and sometimes conflicts? I wish that there was more guidance towards what his panel of experts recommends, for both personal action and galvanizing our local/state/national governments. How we can be more aware and develop the “six sense” of sorts that his experts have been able to hone. I’m sure Lewis wouldn’t have been able to predict the coming of monkeypox alongside covid, but reading this book alongside California declaring a state of emergency about monkeypox felt really surreal, especially as testing remains elusive and vaccines even more so. It brings about a frustrating question: have we learned anything, as individual actors and as a functioning country, about our response (past and ongoing) to the COVID pandemic?
Overall, a really interesting and enlightening book, and one that I’ve already recommended to friends that I’d like to discuss with. It was surprisingly (to me, personally) easy to digest, even amongst pandemic anxiety, but I do wish it had more actionable items or ideas of action.
I was a little skeptical about reading this, but had heard good things about it; it seemed a little strange to me to read about the pandemic while it’s still ongoing. So it convinced me to read it when I read an excerpt and was pleasantly surprised to realize that the book focused more on US pandemic response as a whole, taking from the perspective of health officials and scientists, and stemming from the Bush administration.
The narrative written is jarring and riveting, and exposes a lot of truths about the downfalls of bureaucracy and risk-adverse public action. While I understand the role of institutions like the NIH and CDC, it’s true that they operate best as research institutions, which makes their primary role in setting pandemic standards a little frustrating (at best) and potentially harmful. It was a little shocking to me to recall past action towards illnesses like swine flu and recognize the repeating actions, despite advances in science and technology, and the information of actual illness experts. It’s damning and illuminating, and doesn’t lay the blame at political lines or between presidency regimes.
What I did find frustrating, however, is that as the book leads up to the current COVID pandemic, it feels a little bit like being in the fire zone that Lewis uses as a metaphor - we can see the issues, the lack of public action, the over-million casualties - but there’s still not much to be said about what having this information/reading this book does for the general public. How can we better protect each other and ourselves, when the guidance isn’t clear and sometimes conflicts? I wish that there was more guidance towards what his panel of experts recommends, for both personal action and galvanizing our local/state/national governments. How we can be more aware and develop the “six sense” of sorts that his experts have been able to hone. I’m sure Lewis wouldn’t have been able to predict the coming of monkeypox alongside covid, but reading this book alongside California declaring a state of emergency about monkeypox felt really surreal, especially as testing remains elusive and vaccines even more so. It brings about a frustrating question: have we learned anything, as individual actors and as a functioning country, about our response (past and ongoing) to the COVID pandemic?
Overall, a really interesting and enlightening book, and one that I’ve already recommended to friends that I’d like to discuss with. It was surprisingly (to me, personally) easy to digest, even amongst pandemic anxiety, but I do wish it had more actionable items or ideas of action.
Another great one from Lewis. He delves into public health and the big and small players in those roles, with a focus on COVID and the government's response to it in the Trump years. The CDC is a villain in this book; rather than working on public health, they appear to work just on research. I was convinced by the end that the CDC should just be a research institute and that we need a new institution for public health at the federal level. As usual in his books, it's the people who start off as bit players that really save the day (well, to the extent that it's been saved, which is not much). Overall, an excellent book.
Almost real time history of the massive disaster of our public health system and government (CYA) influence on it.
Pandemic could’ve been contained, knowledge and practices were noted w experts to guide us.
Names of people familiar from the past year- odd assortment of those who tried and those who misstepped. Trying to wrap my head around names admired this past year who come off not as well here (and some vice-versa).
But the CDC- holy cow. What a mess!
Pandemic could’ve been contained, knowledge and practices were noted w experts to guide us.
Names of people familiar from the past year- odd assortment of those who tried and those who misstepped. Trying to wrap my head around names admired this past year who come off not as well here (and some vice-versa).
But the CDC- holy cow. What a mess!