The Wisdom of Plagues : Lessons from 25 Years of Covering Pandemics.
| Author/creator | McNeil, Donald G. |
| Format | Electronic |
| Publication Info | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2024. |
| Description | 1 online resource (373 pages) |
| Supplemental Content | EBSCOhost |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Part one: Initial reflections on pandemics. Covid as a nervous condition ; How I got here ; What I learned on the way -- Part two: The tangled roots of pandemics. What if we'd handled Covid differently? ; What if we'd handled monkeypox differently? ; Where pandemics came from, and how they changed us ; Why no pandemic will be our last -- Part three: The human factors that spread pandemics. The networks that trigger blame ; The missed opportunities ; The "not me" denialism ; The failures to understand culture ; The cancer of rumors ; The despicable profiteers ; The rare politicians who outwit scientists ; The media's forced errors ; The crises of trust and fetishization of science -- Part four: Some ways to head off future pandemics. We need a pentagon for disease ; We need to fight global poverty ; We need to ban religious exemptions ; We need to improve surveillance ; We need to rationalize "emergencies" ; We need to respect witch doctors ; We need to make medicine cheaper ; Like it or not, we need mandates -- Epilogue. |
| Abstract | Award-winning New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. reflects on twenty-five years of covering pandemics-how governments react to them, how the media covers them, how they are exploited, and what we can do to prepare for the next one-in this "fascinating, ferocious fusillade against humanity's two deadliest enemies: disease and itself" (The Economist). For millions of Americans, Donald G. McNeil, Jr. was a comforting voice when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. He was a regular reporter on The New York Times's popular podcast The Daily and told listeners early on to prepare for the worst. He'd covered public health for twenty-five years and quickly realized that an obscure virus in Wuhan, China, was destined to grow into a global pandemic rivaling the 1918 Spanish flu. Because of his clear advice, a generation of Times readers knew the risk was real but that they might be spared by taking the right precautions. Because of his prescient work, The New York Times won the 2021 Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service. The Wisdom of Plagues is "must-reading for preparing us better for the next unavoidable epidemic" (Peter Piot, MD, co-discoverer of Ebola) as McNeil shares his account of what he learned over a quarter-century of reporting in over sixty counties. Many science reporters understand the basics of diseases-from how a virus works to what goes into making a vaccine. But very few understand the psychology of how small outbreaks turn into pandemics, why people refuse to believe they're at risk, or why they reject protective measures like quarantine or vaccines. The COVID-19 pandemic was the story McNeil had trained his whole life to cover. His expertise and breadth of sources let him make many accurate predictions in 2020 about the course that a deadly new virus would take and how different countries would respond. By the time McNeil wrote his last New York Times stories, he had not lost his compassion-but he had grown far more stone-hearted about how governments should react. He had witnessed enough disasters and read enough history to realize that while every epidemic is different, failure was the one constant. Small case-clusters ballooned into catastrophe because weak leaders became mired in denial. Citizens refused to make even minor sacrifices for the common good. They were encouraged in that by money-hungry entrepreneurs and power-hungry populists. Science was ignored, obvious truths were denied, and the innocent too often died. In The Wisdom of Plagues, "one of the most enlightening books on public health" (Lena Wen, MD), McNeil offers tough, prescriptive advice on what we can do to improve global health and be better prepared for the inevitable next pandemic. |
| General note | Description based upon print version of record. |
| Issued in other form | Print version: McNeil, Donald G., Jr. The Wisdom of Plagues New York : Simon & Schuster,c2024 9781668001394 |
| ISBN | 1668001411 |
| ISBN | 9781668001417 (electronic bk.) |
| Stock number | F0EF987C-443D-44F7-8021-863B0D57B1D0 OverDrive, Inc. http://www.overdrive.com |