The Premonition: A Pandemic Story: Lewis, Michael: 9780393881554: Amazon.com: Books

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The Premonition: A Pandemic Story First Edition

by Michael Lewis (Author)

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New York Times Bestseller
An American Scientist Science Book of 2021
A Bloomberg Best Book of 2021
A Fortune Best Books of 2021
A Guardian Best Book of 2021
A Mother Jones Best Book of 2021
A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021
One of Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of 2021

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.

ISBN-10

0393881555
ISBN-13

978-0393881554
Edition

First Edition
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

May 4, 2021
Language

English
Dimensions

9.53 x 1.18 x 6.5 inches
Print length

320 pages
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

“Experience is making the same mistake over and over again, only with greater confidence,”
Highlighted by 4,360 Kindle readers
The root of the CDC’s behavior was simple: fear. They didn’t want to take any action for which they might later be blamed.
Highlighted by 2,597 Kindle readers
I think this particular story is about the curious talents of a society, and how those talents are wasted if not led.
Highlighted by 1,411 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

An Amazon Best Book of 2021

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lewis brings a welcome gimlet eye to the Trump era… the lessons of the “The Premonition” apply to more than just the C.D.C. ― they tell us why government bureaucracies fail."
― Nick Confessore, New York Times Book Review

"Lewis finds ways not just to showcase the brokenness of the system writ large but to zoom in on the sand in the gears.... [S]pellbinding."
― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

"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…Michael Lewis has written a new book…that fills in those blanks. And it is a sweeping indictment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
― Rachel Martin, NPR

"[T]he narrative of The Premonition makes for compelling reading...Lewis writes of the quest for an improved public health response to such devastating crises as an extended set piece in fearless and iconoclastic scientific inquiry, calling to mind the tense, high-stakes storyline of a Michael Crichton thriller or an episode of House."
― Chris Lehman, The New Republic

"In his new book...Michael Lewis does what Michael Lewis does better than anyone: He makes a problem of apparently ungodly complexity not only comprehensible but also a pleasure to be around. He does this by finding someone who sees the problem more clearly than others do (and invariably more clearly than the people in charge do), and then makes the problem as alive to the reader as the individual."
― Karl Vick, Time

"This is a book about some brave, curious people who tried hard to swim against the tide. As always in a Lewis book they are brought vividly alive. The descriptions are punchy, the dialogue snappy. Lewis is a master of his form. He’s an expert, in fact."
― Christina Patterson, The Sunday Times (UK)

"Replete with unforgettable characters, taut pacing and the stakes of life or death…. [A] page-turner."
― Elizabeth Greenwood, San Francisco Chronicle

"An urgent, highly readable contribution to the literature of what might be called the politics of disease."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the Back Cover

Praise for Michael Lewis

"I would read an 800-page history of the stapler if he wrote it."
― John Williams, New York Times Book Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (May 4, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393881555
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393881554
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.33 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.53 x 1.18 x 6.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #16,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in Epidemiology (Books)
- #5 in Health Policy (Books)
- #9 in Communicable Diseases (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 17,526 ratings

About the author

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Michael Lewis

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Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of The Undoing Project, Liar's Poker, Flash Boys, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.

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Great read and not what I expected

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 11, 2023

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I was afraid this might be another blow by blow indictment of the Trump administration’s willful mishandling of the pandemic, which I saw live - I didn’t need a book on it. It’s not. It’s a far more interesting and compelling story of the inner workings of a public health system and bureaucracy and why it failed in its’ core mission to protect the American public from disease. It does so through really compelling character profiles and exceptional storytelling. My only nit is that it just sort of ends as the pandemic is taking off. It would have been more satisfying to close the loop on the characters and whether we’ve learned anything that helped mitigate the ongoing pandemic or may help avoid a repeat.

One person found this helpful

Explanation why 600,000+ are dead - mismanagement because folks knew it was coming

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 30, 2021

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Another good read from Michael Lewis, maybe not quite up to Undoing Project, Big Short and Blind Side, but definitely worth reading. I thought he could have reached more conclusions instead of opening the wound and leaving it bare.
The Premonition is Michael Lewis' take on the US healthcare system while the Big Short was about the financial system. The parallels are obvious. Both failed at a crucial time.
It paints a tough story about the grasping for profit in the healthcare industry and profit’s importance over any consideration of human life. It also shows the politicization of US life and how the CDC became a political tool that cares about studying but not fighting the disease while stepping aside in any criticism of its political masters. A further step in letting politics rule over reason.
In the balance of lives vs economy, the US the system put almost all its weight on the economy as bodies stacked waiting for burial. The US healthcare system is very decentralized (vs other G7 countries) and this made it unmanageable as the weak national leadership deferred to states, states to counties and so on. The strength of the decentralized system, like a chain, was only as strong as the many weak links at all levels. And there were many. Lewis said leadership was akin to a teacher telling Grade 6s that the homework and tests were optional.
The result was the highest death total in the world so far, by far.
The US has always been great at promoting itself. Claims to be the first in history at everything, including unabashed self promotion and convinced itself it was the greatest in the world at almost everything. Most still believe this even despite the dismal, tragic failure in handling COVID. Add denial to the superlatives.
This book also falls prey to this by lionizing the independent “heroes” who fought bravely against the evil empires – that’s the usual US trope of the little guy fighting for his rights. Lewis finds worthy individuals who were capable and willing to fight to try to prevent deaths, but they faced a system stacked against them for profit and power that prevented them from acting. It is a condemnation of the structure of that healthcare system.
The financial crash of 2009 showed the US financial system had a false front of boundless prosperity that real estate price declines unveiled and markets crashed, as Lewis showed in The Big Short. A lot of money was lost; houses were lost.
Now the disastrous handling of COVID that he documents in The Premonition shows the healthcare system also has a false front. This time it wasn’t money or houses; a lot of lives were lost.
I finished the book thinking that the healthcare industry is a lot like Las Vegas. In Vegas, you think you are going into an Egyptian pyramid or to Paris or a treasure island, but the building is just a huge barn filled with slot machines and flashing lights waiting to take your money. The same deceit is true about the former President who seemed to play one on TV but not actually do the work.
People in the US seem to fall for the same illusions, time after time – as do many others in the world. However, the US economic system does not use government to provide moral or ethical constraints that governments do in other countries.
Sure, exceptions can be lauded and even be inspirational. Lewis finds stories of these exceptional people, the grownups in the room, who put up the good fight and lost because of the system. Like the false fronts of Las Vegas barns for gambling, the exceptions are just exceptions, window-dressing & distractions. Overall, to the hundreds of thousands who were failed by the system and died, the system they experienced was below average in protecting their health.
Lewis examined how institutions like the CDC had evolved into a politically driven patsy for an incompetent administration and were ill prepared to fight a pandemic. They waited for a vaccine as bodies piled up. Hoping for a Hail Mary pass to pull the game out. Never a good going in strategy.
Will the US be ready for the next pandemic? The Big Short answer: No.
The Big Short and The Premonition both show how trust in US government and institutions has been eroded. This lack of trust manifests itself now in how few people in the US are willing to be vaccinated. They don’t trust the system – perhaps with good reason.
If you can’t trust the institutions with your health or wealth, what then. The extreme political dimorphism in the country doesn’t help.
I’d love to see Lewis' take on the public safety industry – soldier cops, resisting armed public and profit based prisons. Does it keep people safer? (less)

17 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 24, 2023

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Reads like a novel. Gives insight into the factors that contributed to losing 1+million Americans to Covid. A critic of our scattered and diverse public health systems. A look at some real medical heroes and how no one would listen to them.

A true story that will bring tears to your eyes and the hopeful realization that God is really on our side and will keep us safe!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 11, 2022

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This is a real historical record of what happened with this Coronavirus and why Lewis thought it happened the way it did up to 2021.
After doing some basic research I determined I purchased this book Aug 2021 after watching a “60 Minutes” program that featured Michael Lewis, the author of this book. He at the time mentioned Charity Dean and I think Richard Hatchett and Carter Meachem and others (nicknamed the Wolverines after the “Red Dawn” movie) who are all major players trying to stop this major disaster in real life.
I then read roughly half of it and then let it sit for at least 6 months by just working around it and actually ignoring it and the same time acknowledging I really needed to read the rest of the story. It was depressing to me to read.
Finally I determined that I needed to finish reading the book and have done so.
And but for the grace of God we have survived so far this Coronavirus, but not because these players did NOT do everything they could do to assist us the people to survive but because 99% of the main players that could control the Coronavirus did absolutely nothing and in actual fact hindered their assistance and help to control this virus.
Lewis ends the book by declaring that Charity Dean is starting a real commercial company to make a profit and maybe if at all possible at the same time save the world. Charity has finally determined that the only way to get the attention she needed was to make it cost. And the more it costs the more attention and credibility she will get to help control the next Pandemic. And there will be another, probably sooner rather than 100 years from now like the “Spanish Flu”. And it could very well be this same Coronavirus, just mutated.
She is doing this because if she doesn’t no one else will. Which possibly means that the human world will end up as the best case in a new “middle ages” or at the worst extinct. The ones in the middle are to scary to even imagine. Hopefully with her help and others like the Wolverines we can survive.
I realize that this is probably not a fair review.
But other readers must determine what they think of the book and review what they think of it. I really don’t think I’m to far off my opinion of this book.
This whole mess is scary!

And just so you know Michael Lewis also wrote among many others “The Blind Side & Moneyball”.
This author is amazing!

8 people found this helpful

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Ali Erdengiz

Great read. Insightful.

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on June 27, 2021

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There's a hint of hindsight and a lot of character development about some great people that in the end I didn't care much about. If you remove the fluff, you still have about roughly 100 pages that you should read. It provides a chilling account of CDC's ineptitude, which came to me as a surprise, and the federal and state governments' inadequacies that came not as a surprise. If America has become ungovernable, why should its health system or lack thereof should have worked during the pandemic? It shows that the Donald was only part of the problem.

One person found this helpful

shima

米国におけるコロナ対策の裏側がよく分かる

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on July 8, 2021

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ソーシャルディスタンシングという言葉はコロナパンデミックと共に急に使われ始めた感があるが、この概念は2007年のブッシュ政権において作成されたガイドラインで強調されていた。（その内容は「「スイスチーズ方式」でCOVID-19封じ込めの第2のチャンス」でウェブ検索して表示される情報が分かりやすい）つまり、14年前には、パンデミック発生時の対策が決められていたのに、トランプ政権はそれをないがしろにしていたということ。

しかも、本書によると、ソーシャルディスタンシングの重要性に最初に気付いたのは、サイエンスフェアの課題でパンデミック対策を取り上げた子供。それが、人づてに伝わり、最終的にはガイドライン作成に携わったCarter Mecherらの目にとまり、それをベースに彼らはガイドラインを作成した。ちなみに当初はsocial distanceと言っていたようで、それがsocial distancingに変わったみたい？

トランプ政権の無能さやCDCの機能不全（なぜそうなったかの推論も挙げられている）についても、何度も触れられている。
本書の強さは、実在の人物、例えばCarter Mecher、Richard Hatchett、Rajeev Venkayya、Joe DeRisi、Charity Deanといった、コロナ対策の裏側で活躍した人たちに着目して、彼らがどう貢献したのか、どのような苦労をしたのかを分かりやすく説明しているところ。TVや新聞しか見ていないのであれば、決して分からない情報。

彼らと同じことが日本でできるかというと疑問。彼らはいずれも組織（官庁＆企業）の常識にとらわれず、時には上司に逆らい、自分が正しいと思ったことを突き通して、横のつながりを通して解決策を見つけていったのだけど、日本では行動に移す部分が難しいでしょうから。
もちろん、彼らも乗り越えられなかった、官の大きな壁はあり、それがどうなったのかについては分からないままとなっている。また、保守による、Covidが危険でないと見る人たちに関する対策については、まったく触れられていない。
ともかく、米国で実際に現場でどのような対策がなされたかを知りたいのであれば、必読だと思います。

7 people found this helpful

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Loren

Full of insights, and surprisingly easy to read

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on June 10, 2021

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Although this a book about the Covid pandemic, it reads like a well-written novel. Definitely. Worth reading.Lots of insights, from medicine to computer science to politics.

オーナーオブ・ロンリーハーツクラブバンド

タイムリーですが冷静に受け止められない

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on April 18, 2023

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"Liar's Poker"の作者による2021年5月発表の最新作。作者は長年広義の経済物を扱ってきましたが近年は政治にシフト、本作では米国政府のパンデミック対策とその歴史を描きます。

J. Barry著"The Great Influenza"に衝撃を受けたブッシュ大統領ジュニアが2005年に即時対応を命令、コンピュータプログラムによるシミュレーションに基いたパンデミック対策として世界で初めて"Social Distancing"を提唱したものの、今回のコロナでは連邦・地方両政府の初動が遅れ、結果として個人と民間ボランティアがヒーロー的な役割を果たしたと。

足掛け5年で漸くコロナ禍を脱しつつある今、正に時宜を得たノンフィクション作品です。が、全世界がマスクを外したこの期に及んでも着用を推奨する異常さに気付かない、或いは正しいと信じている本邦の視野が狭い無能な専門家と無責任な政治家に心底絶望した一人として、米国の偉業を冷静に受け止められませんでした。

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Athan

Depressing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 21, 2021

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The US once led from the front, taking special care to put its citizens first.

The rest of the world transmits electricity into your home appliances at 220 Volts. The US suffers a tiny bit financially, but delivers it at 110 Volts, which saves lives. The rest of the world chlorinates water. The US does one better, it fluorinates. The rest of the world was happy to suffer lead in its gasoline (and lungs) well into the eighties. The US switched to unleaded as early as 1972. And toward the end of “The Premonition” you learn that as recently as 1976 the US embarked on a mass vaccination program to stop a potential repeat of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

What you also learn from this book is that there’s nothing left of the lead the US once enjoyed or the ability of its government to improve people’s lives.

This is the story of the team that, in response to an order from George W Bush, put together the nation’s plan to fight pandemics, only to see Bolton shut it down halfway through the Trump administration, just in time for the US to totally fumble the recent Coronavirus pandemic.

In the way that only Michael Lewis can, you are introduced to Bob Glass, Charity Dean, Carter Melcher, Richard Hatchett and Joe DeRisi and follow them as they take it upon themselves to rescue America in this most recent challenge.

If you read the papers, you know they failed. Here you get to see why: the institutions that would once have taken charge are shown to now be ossified facsimiles of their former selves, mainly focused on avoiding blame, preserving the status quo and suppressing the efforts of any potential usurper.

Just as depressingly, from my angle, the only institutions that come out well from this are the ones funded privately by billionaires and millionaires.

I finished this today, August 21st, with the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the news and I can’t say I’m surprised.

15 people found this helpful

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