I just had a chance to read this book review, and the description of societal/institutional failure is spot on. One modification I would make is inserted below
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Michael Lewis' 'The Premonition' Is A Sweeping Indictment Of The CDC npr.org/2021/05/03/991…
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Michael Lewis' 'The Premonition' Is A Sweeping Indictment Of The CDC npr.org/2021/05/03/991…
"Much has been written about how the pandemic came to be, but not so well known are the details about how it was able to spread so quickly in the United States.
"Author Michael Lewis has written a new book, The Premonition, that fills in those blanks.
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"Author Michael Lewis has written a new book, The Premonition, that fills in those blanks.
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"And it is a sweeping indictment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC)
"Lewis, also author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side and The Big Short, says a public health doctor in California named Charity Dean is one of the people who saw the real danger
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"Lewis, also author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side and The Big Short, says a public health doctor in California named Charity Dean is one of the people who saw the real danger
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"..of the virus before the rest of the country did.
"No one should have to be as brave as Charity Dean was as a local public health officer. To do her job, she had to be brave in a way that brought tears to my eyes,"
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"No one should have to be as brave as Charity Dean was as a local public health officer. To do her job, she had to be brave in a way that brought tears to my eyes,"
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"And when I first met her, I realized I had a character because all over her house were like these Post-it notes reminding her to be brave, like ... 'courage is a muscle memory' or 'the tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut.'
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"She had all these kind of inspirational things. And when you get into the story of what Charity Dean ... had to do on the ground, your hair stands up on the back of your neck."
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"Lewis writes about how Dean tried and tried to get the state officials around her to look at the data and act to make sure the virus didn't spread. She put it all on the line, her reputation, her job.
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"And across the country, there was another group of doctors led by Carter Mescher trying to do the same thing at the federal level.
"It was incredible to me that there was this kind of secret group of seven doctors — they called themselves the Wolverines
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"It was incredible to me that there was this kind of secret group of seven doctors — they called themselves the Wolverines
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"— who were positioned in interesting places in and around the federal government, who had been together for the better part of 15 years and who had come together whenever there was a threat of a disease outbreak to help organize the country's response," Lewis says.
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"According to Lewis' reporting, the CDC basically had two positions on the pandemic early on. Early on it was that there was nothing to see here — that this is not a big deal. It's being overblown.
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"And then there was this very quick pivot when it started spreading in the U.S. and the position became it's too late and there's nothing we can do.
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"...the tragedy that became the American coronavirus pandemic was a perfect storm of the reaction of the president at the time,. the long history of politicization of the CDC and the lack of a public health care system all coming together.
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The piece I would add is that underlying "politicization" is regulatory capture -- the pervasive influence of "special" interests.
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