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I was tempted to read this because I was so impressed with another of Michael Lewis's books (The Undoing Project), but now it looks to me like the focus of the book is entirely on the situation in the USA. Is this just American parochialism, or is there some international interest for readers from the rest of the world?
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The Premonition: A Pandemic Story,
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Joseph Psotka
This is aboout the USA's hesitant position about pandemics and its disorganized government. You can take lessons from it about the importance of national healthcare and good governance; but it is primarily about the USA.
Budd Margolis
I am halfway through and I assure you, there are many useful examples and lessons to be gleaned from this work. It is thoughtful, accurate and explains why the countries that were supposed to handle this crisis Pandemic failed and why the medical sciences have failed and how they can improve. I find his writing and information flow to be highly entertaining and fascinating!
Scott McDowell
Ignorance of Our President? Weak. He responded with a travel ban against Chyna and was called a racist. Please. I thought Michael Lewis might be higher minded than to cave to the hating Left. Pitiful.
Mary Rand
Any country could learn from this. It is an example of how unprepared one country was and how much the leadership was in denial.
Jill
Read it! It is well worth it!
Michael
It's about the US response, however it's really about the lead-up to it and the ways the US was not prepared to handle it because of the years before. COVID actually being in the US is only like the last 50 pages of the book.
Travis Rebello
Update: I read it and really enjoyed it.
DrMama
He's American, he lives and works there, plus - at the first whispers of the onset of Covid - he also knew people in the US (and beyond) who worked in all sorts of pertinent areas. Together they could expand on his and each others' specialisms ... and they all knew even more people with specialities and contacts, so that the work-web could expand to cover all aspects of the work that needed to be done. Including contact with specialists in other countries. I'm sure the same was happening - on a smaller scale - in most countries: including the UK... and that all were eventually sharing research. Lewis can only write about what he did, and who he knew (or knew of).
Althogether, it's a wonderful book, describing awesome work, sharing and reciprocity. Plus, I'm sure that a similar book by the specialists from 'any' country would appear to have a similar parochialism... except not... because they were all eventually sharing. I read a library copy of this, but I have since bought the work, as it was one of the best reads I've had in a long time - even better than 'Middlemarch'.
Althogether, it's a wonderful book, describing awesome work, sharing and reciprocity. Plus, I'm sure that a similar book by the specialists from 'any' country would appear to have a similar parochialism... except not... because they were all eventually sharing. I read a library copy of this, but I have since bought the work, as it was one of the best reads I've had in a long time - even better than 'Middlemarch'.
Dora Smith
I resemble that remark! I'm really most interested in what goes on the United States. Most of the rest of the world either handled it a lot better, or dramatically paid the price at some point.
Honestly, the other problem I have with this book is that it seems to focus on a narrow set of people doing early work on covid-19. The people who eventually got through are to all appearances never mentioned.
Honestly, the other problem I have with this book is that it seems to focus on a narrow set of people doing early work on covid-19. The people who eventually got through are to all appearances never mentioned.
IvanOpinion
There are lots of echos of the similar failings in the UK's response.
Phil Murray
It is reasonable that the book should describe only the US situation but is still of interest for a general audience. But, it did rather suggest that the individuals involved in the story had a naïve uninterest in what the rest of the world was doing, even given that was not within the scope of the book.
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