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.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
By Michael Lewis
Narrated by Adenrele Ojo
Copyright (c) 2021
Audible Studios
ASIN B08XQVKCGG
Length: 11:26
Genre: Healthcare, Current Events
www.amazon.com