First published 2021
Scott Gottlieb developed America's first pandemic response plan in the early 2000s while working at the FDA. He created detailed protocols and the Bush administration conducted drills to prepare for a global health crisis. When Gottlieb returned as FDA director in 2017, he found the agency still using his outdated plan and obsolete tools for Ebola, Zika, and swine flu outbreaks. After he left in late 2019, Covid-19 struck the United States. The Trump administration responded slowly and ineffectively. Nine months into the crisis, the federal response remained inadequate. Instead of opening schools safely and building vaccine infrastructure, the administration cut funding and stockpiled hydroxychloroquine while claiming the virus had vanished. Gottlieb examines why America was so unprepared, from failing to engage private manufacturers for testing supplies to maintaining the false narrative that Covid would disappear naturally. He argues that without correcting these systemic failures, the virus will continue spreading and killing Americans while hampering future vaccine distribution.
Genres: medical, history-of-medicine, 21st-century, current-affairs, academic, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, systemic-failure
Setting: United States
Period: Early 2000s, 2017, Late 2019
512 pages · Hardcover · Harper