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Lessons from the Covid War

An Investigative Report

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
This powerful report on what went wrong—and right—with America’s Covid response, from a team of 34 experts, shows how Americans faced the worst peacetime catastrophe of modern times
 
Our national leaders have drifted into treating the pandemic as though it were an unavoidable natural catastrophe, repeating a depressing cycle of panic followed by neglect. So a remarkable group of practitioners and scholars from many backgrounds came together determined to discover and learn lessons from this latest world war. 
 
Lessons from the Covid War is plain-spoken and clear sighted. It cuts through the enormous jumble of information to make some sense of it all and answer:  What just happened to us, and why?  And crucially, how, next time, could we do better? Because there will be a next time.
 
The Covid war showed Americans that their wondrous scientific knowledge had run far ahead of their organized ability to apply it in practice. Improvising to fight this war, many Americans displayed ingenuity and dedication. But they struggled with systems that made success difficult and failure easy. 
 
This book shows how Americans can come together, learn hard truths, build on what worked, and prepare for global emergencies to come.
 
A joint effort from:

Danielle Allen • John M. Barry  • John Bridgeland • Michael Callahan • Nicholas A. Christakis  • Doug Criscitello • Charity Dean • Victor Dzau • Gary Edson • Ezekiel Emanuel • Ruth Faden • Baruch Fischhoff • Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg • Melissa Harvey • Richard Hatchett • David Heymann • Kendall Hoyt  • Andrew Kilianski • James Lawler • Alexander J. Lazar • James Le Duc • Marc Lipsitch • Anup Malani • Monique K. Mansoura • Mark McClellan • Carter Mecher • Michael Osterholm • David A. Relman • Robert Rodriguez • Carl Schramm • Emily Silverman • Kristin Urquiza •  Rajeev Venkayya • Philip Zelikow
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    • Kirkus

      Starred review from May 1, 2023
      A hard look at widespread failed governance during a global pandemic. The Trump administration's dismal response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been reported in numerous books and articles. The findings presented in this riveting analysis synthesize and go far beyond that material. The 34 members of the Covid Crisis Group, directed by Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and including prominent scientists, scholars, physicians, and public health experts, conducted 195 listening sessions with more than 270 participants, representing a broad range of expertise. Also drawing on their own background research, they offer an authoritative assessment of "the world war" against Covid-19, particularly in America. "No country's performance," they have found, "is more disappointing than that of the United States." Although they agree that Trump "was a comorbidity" in the fight, his incompetence was not the only obstacle. The nation, they assert, "faced a twenty-first-century challenge with a system designed for nineteenth-century threats." At the federal level, "confusion and friction" in myriad departments obscured "who was in charge of what problems." Action plans emerged as "a jargon laden catalog of problems" and "statements of goals," with "little in it about what people would actually do." When the Trump administration threw responsibility to the states, it fell onto "a patchwork quilt of decentralized, detached, autonomous, and often contradictory operation plans and policies." The nation sorely lacked a network of biomedical surveillance, which would have tracked the progress of the outbreak, testing results, and treatment protocols. Compared with Germany and South Korea, the U.S. evinced "splintered crisis management." As the contributors clearly show, "what the Covid war exposed, what every recent crisis has exposed--even in Iraq and Afghanistan--is the erosion of operational capabilities in much of American civilian governance." Crafting a system of national health security is crucial, where executive leadership is "aided by a much stronger core of trained, deployable public health regulars." An urgent, meticulously documented argument for better preparedness in future crises.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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