This book examines the role of law and policy in addressing the public health crisis of COVID-19 and offers reforms that could improve pandemic preparedness for future outbreaks. Focusing on a number of countries most expected to provide agility and organization in their crisis response – the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Taiwan – the book shows how failures in leadership from governments, executives, and institutions created a vacuum that was quickly filled by naysayers, conspiracy theorists, vaccine hucksters, and fake news generators. Through the key themes of healthcare, leadership, security, and education, the chapters address critical questions: Why have masks become such a polarizing force? How do you self-isolate if you don’t have a home? How should equitable triage models for overwhelmed frontline healthcare workers be developed? Can we utilize artificial intelligence to educate the public about manipulated information they access concerning the pandemic? The book was written during the pandemic and weaves in to each chapter vignettes with personal revelations from a broad range of countries, including some also grappling with poverty, war, natural disasters, or revolution. It will appeal to academics, professionals, and policymakers interested in how law and health policy can converge on solutions for global infectious disease. It is suitable for use in upper-level courses.
Governments, businesses, and individuals around the world are thinking about what happens after the COVID-19 pandemic. Can we hope to not only ward off another COVID-like disaster but also eliminate all respiratory diseases, including the flu? Bill Gates, one of our greatest and most effective thinkers and activists, believes the answer is yes. The author of the #1 New York Times best seller How to Avoid a Climate Disaster lays out clearly and convincingly what the world should have learned from COVID-19 and what all of us can do to ward off another catastrophe like it. Relying on the shared knowledge of the world’s foremost experts and on his own experience of combating fatal diseases through the Gates Foundation, Gates first helps us understand the science of infectious diseases. Then he shows us how the nations of the world, working in conjunction with one another and with the private sector, how we can prevent a new pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy. Here is a clarion call—strong, comprehensive, and of the gravest importance.
"MacKenzie's fascinating book gives us the scope and scale to be able to put this pandemic in perspective and, it begs the question, will we learn from this in time to prevent to next one?" —Molly Caldwell Crosby, Bestselling author of The American Plague In a gripping, accessible narrative, a veteran science journalist lays out the shocking story of how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic happened and how to make sure this never happens again Over the last 30 years of epidemics and pandemics, we learned nearly every lesson needed to stop this coronavirus outbreak in its tracks. We heeded almost none of them. The result is a pandemic on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. In this captivating, authoritative, and eye-opening book, science journalist Debora MacKenzie lays out the full story of how and why it happened: the previous viruses that should have prepared us, the shocking public health failures that paved the way, the failure to contain the outbreak, and most importantly, what we must do to prevent future pandemics. Debora MacKenzie has been reporting on emerging diseases for more than three decades, and she draws on that experience to explain how COVID-19 went from a potentially manageable outbreak to a global pandemic. Offering a compelling history of the most significant recent outbreaks, including SARS, MERS, H1N1, Zika, and Ebola, she gives a crash course in Epidemiology 101--how viruses spread and how pandemics end—and outlines the lessons we failed to learn from each past crisis. In vivid detail, she takes us through the arrival and spread of COVID-19, making clear the steps that governments knew they could have taken to prevent or at least prepare for this. Looking forward, MacKenzie makes a bold, optimistic argument: this pandemic might finally galvanize the world to take viruses seriously. Fighting this pandemic and preventing the next one will take political action of all kinds, globally, from governments, the scientific community, and individuals—but it is possible. No one has yet brought together our knowledge of COVID-19 in a comprehensive, informative, and accessible way. But that story can already be told, and Debora MacKenzie's urgent telling is required reading for these times and beyond. It is too early to say where the COVID-19 pandemic will go, but it is past time to talk about what went wrong and how we can do better.
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases -- and the panic and corruption that make them worse. Throughout history, humankind's biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat -- Ebola, SARS, Zika, coronavirus -- seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. People like Dr. Ali S. Khan. In his long career as a public health first responder -- protected by a thin mask from infected patients, napping under nets to keep out scorpions, making life-and-death decisions on limited, suspect information -- Khan has found that rogue microbes will always be a problem, but outbreaks are often caused by people. We make mistakes, politicize emergencies, and, too often, fail to imagine the consequences of our actions. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others -- and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
An inside account of the fight to contain the world’s deadliest diseases--and the panic and corruption that make them worse Throughout history, humankind’s biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat--Ebola, SARS, Zika--seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. People like Dr. Ali S. Khan. In his long career as a public health first responder--protected by a thin mask from infected patients, napping under nets to keep out scorpions, making life-and-death decisions on limited, suspect information--Khan has found that rogue microbes will always be a problem, but outbreaks are often caused by people. We make mistakes, politicize emergencies, and, too often, fail to imagine the consequences of our actions. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others--and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
"Engaging, accessible and ultimately optimistic account" - BBC Medical Editor Fergus Walsh "DISEASE X sets out a game-changing plan for how the world can learn from Covid-19 and be ready for the next pandemic." - Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister DISEASE X is a fast-paced, almost real-time account of how international scientists and global public health leaders are preparing the world to be able to contain outbreaks of new and re-emerging infectious diseases before they spawn deadly global contagions like Covid-19. Disease X is the codename given by the World Health Organisation to a pathogen currently unknown to science that could cause havoc to humankind. Emerging infections are sending us multiple warnings that another Disease X is looming. These events are not freak events, but are happening continually, and at an increasing cadence: SARS in 2002, H5N1 bird flu in 2004, H1N1 ‘swine flu’ in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015, Covid-19 in 2019, and H5N1 bird flu and mpox more recently. Written by a long-standing ex-Reuters global health and science correspondent, DISEASE X uses privileged access to the body leading international efforts to control viral outbreaks, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and its CEO, Dr Richard Hatchett. CEPI seed-funded three successful Covid vaccines, including the AstraZeneca and Moderna shots. Weaving in insights from the likes of Bill Gates, Erna Solberg, Jeremy Farrar and Seth Berkley, the book explores the emergence of the novel coronavirus and the deadly crisis it caused. It analyses the responses of global health organisations and experts, including the WHO; national governments in Britain, China and the USA; COVAX, the global vaccine allocation facility; pharmaceutical companies; and leading research scientists. Ultimately, DISEASE X tells how, throughout the devastation of Covid, science and human ingenuity have shown that the world can devise intricate new weapons at a breathtaking pace against new deadly diseases. It tells how the world’s public health scientists are embarking on a 100 Days Mission to embed that scientific progress into a pandemic-busting plan to defuse future threats from as-yet-unknown pathogens in a little over three months. This is the 100 Days Mission – backed by the G7 and G20 - that will see a newly prepared world, one that can move at speed to snuff out future threats before they become deadly pandemics. With a foreword by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Reviews “DISEASE X sets out how a mystery pathogen of the future could be contained before it goes global, but only if lessons are learned from SARS-CoV-2 and other global disease threats. An engaging, accessible and ultimately optimistic account of how nations, institutions and the scientific community responded to Covid and how they could work together in future.” – Fergus Walsh, BBC Medical Editor “As Kelland argues cogently, fear of the next outbreak should not paralyse us but instead galvanise us into making sure the terrible toll of Covid-19 is not repeated. DISEASE X is a valuable policy roadmap in a world custom-built for pandemics.” – Anjana Ahuja, co-author of Spike: The Virus Vs The People “With access to key players on the frontlines, DISEASE X takes us inside the effort to prevent future outbreaks from exploding into global disasters... this important book outlines why it will be vital to keep pandemic threats at the top of our priority list for decades to come.” – James Paton, former Health Correspondent for Bloomberg News
In a gripping, accessible narrative, a veteran science journalist lays out the shocking story of how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic happened and how to make sure this never happens again.
"The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is one of the challenges the world is facing right now. It has seen an unparalleled spread within a short span of time, and claimed victims in many parts of the world. As the number of confirmed cases skyrockets exponentially, a recent surge of 'bad' behaviours such as xenophobia attacks, propagation of misinformation, and panic-buying of essential items have become increasingly commonplace. Panic and chaos reigned as the world witnessed unprecedented moves by countries to close their borders and implement strict quarantine orders in a desperate attempt to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. COVID-19 has impacted many different aspects of society, from politics and economics to the psychological well-being of citizens, and the list will continue to grow as the spread of the coronavirus persist. While it is impossible to fathom the way COVID-19 will change our usual way of life, there are prevailing concerns that the community currently faces. What are the psychological impacts of a pandemic? How do we enhance the collective resilience of the community during a pandemic? How do we cope with mental health issues during a pandemic? How do we deal with bereavement during a pandemic? How can we support healthcare workers and emergency responders during a pandemic? These are just some of many important concerns that influence the way we cope with the COVID-19 outbreak. There is therefore an urgent need to enhance our understanding and level of preparedness against Covid-19 and pandemic in general. To that end, this edited book, How to Prepare for the Next Pandemic: Behavioural Sciences Insights for Practitioners and Policymakers aims to examine the impacts pandemic have on our society from a behavioural sciences perspective, and to identify solutions that practitioners and policymakers can adopt to combat the spread of COVID-19 in this new operating environment"--
Harness cutting-edge science and common sense to outsmart obesity. One of the most significant global health challenges we face today is obesity. Over 100 million people in the US alone are seeking a game-changing solution to this problem. How can we break free from obesity’s clutches and shed unwanted weight for good? The answer—multifaceted, interconnected, and rooted in scientific fact, clinical experience, and common sense—lies within the pages of Outsmarting Obesity. In Outsmarting Obesity, pioneering physician Dr. Stewart Lonky gives us a fresh look at the obesity challenge with an easy-to-read explanation of the science behind his groundbreaking approach. He explains how epigenetics, our modern environment, and our toxic behaviors have created the perfect obesity storm, imperiling our physical, financial, and psychological well-being. Dr. Lonky has devoted years to studying obesity’s mysteries, and together with his colleague, peak performance expert and celebrity nutritionist Chris Talley, offers concrete suggestions on how to stop, reverse, and even prevent the obesity scourge. Get ready to break free from obesity’s clutches and embark on a journey toward lasting weight loss and a healthier, more vibrant life.
