lisaeirene's review
4.0
Andy Slavitt worked for Obama and tried to help fix the disaster of the ACA rollout. He is an “insider” with a lot of first hand information from behind the scenes, even though he wasn’t part of the Trump administration. The book is a pretty fast read and reveals the behind the scenes stuff and all the things that went horribly wrong during the pandemic. It was informative, interesting and seemed well researched.
“She described COVID-19 as a lonely disease “where you can’t visit the person you love. You can’t be at their bedside. You can’t even meet the people who are taking care of them. You can only talk to them on the phone. And it’s just against everything that we’ve ever believed in for family and values and who we are as a country.”
“This virus is aiming to thin the herd of the old, the poor, and the sick.”
He writes about the countries that did REALLY well during the pandemic, and then focused on everything America did wrong. And we apparently did everything wrong.
“We were like people who had never seen fire before and who wouldn’t believe it was dangerous without sticking our hands in the flames first.”
“That will never work. Studies have shown people will listen to you for about two weeks, but if they don’t see what you’re telling them, they will begin to rebel. And they might rebel at exactly the time that the virus comes to their location. This is a very big country. You’ve got to manage this regionally and balance people’s needs with the best public health response. More people will die, but that’s the only way things will work.”
“Hong Kong had two important weapons the United States didn’t: pandemic experience and the will to act collectively. The city of 7 million had been through a flu outbreak in 1968 that ended up killing 1 million people worldwide, and they’d been through SARS in 2003. Even though the new Chinese government in Hong Kong didn’t begin its own response quickly and was not widely trusted, most people began wearing masks—without a mandate—by the end of January.”
During this whole pandemic, and reading the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about how if we’d had true lockdowns nationwide, we might have been able to be more like South Korea and New Zealand. What is most disappointing is that I don’t think anyone has “learned” from the lessons of the pandemic and we will be doomed to repeat this in the future.
“She described COVID-19 as a lonely disease “where you can’t visit the person you love. You can’t be at their bedside. You can’t even meet the people who are taking care of them. You can only talk to them on the phone. And it’s just against everything that we’ve ever believed in for family and values and who we are as a country.”
“This virus is aiming to thin the herd of the old, the poor, and the sick.”
He writes about the countries that did REALLY well during the pandemic, and then focused on everything America did wrong. And we apparently did everything wrong.
“We were like people who had never seen fire before and who wouldn’t believe it was dangerous without sticking our hands in the flames first.”
“That will never work. Studies have shown people will listen to you for about two weeks, but if they don’t see what you’re telling them, they will begin to rebel. And they might rebel at exactly the time that the virus comes to their location. This is a very big country. You’ve got to manage this regionally and balance people’s needs with the best public health response. More people will die, but that’s the only way things will work.”
“Hong Kong had two important weapons the United States didn’t: pandemic experience and the will to act collectively. The city of 7 million had been through a flu outbreak in 1968 that ended up killing 1 million people worldwide, and they’d been through SARS in 2003. Even though the new Chinese government in Hong Kong didn’t begin its own response quickly and was not widely trusted, most people began wearing masks—without a mandate—by the end of January.”
During this whole pandemic, and reading the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about how if we’d had true lockdowns nationwide, we might have been able to be more like South Korea and New Zealand. What is most disappointing is that I don’t think anyone has “learned” from the lessons of the pandemic and we will be doomed to repeat this in the future.
cstack's review
3.0
Listened to the audiobook. It's a very different experience seeing all the crazy events lined up in a row, rather than living them one by one in real time. I'm a fan of his podcast, so I like this too. I ultimately didn't take away anything earth-shattering.
kellimac's review
4.0
Bittersweet finishing this book on the anniversary of 9/11. A time our country came together and cared for one another. Though it wasn’t all lovely endearments, there were threats, innocent people were attacked for resembling our nations new enemy. And now we remain in a battle with an invisible enemy. Yet waste resources waging a war with ourselves. Over policies, mandates, vaccines and ventilators. I work in a clinical laboratory and can see the numbers climb. I see the exhaustion in my co-workers, in myself. But I remain hopeful that wit wins out and we turn a corner soon. Thank you to Andy for writing this book highlighting the essential workers and the struggle that so many do not have to face.
sbtemba's review
3.0
3.5 stars. Interesting look at the covid pandemic from someone who was in the thick of it policy wise. Lots of stories of how it was mismanaged. He does go off on a lot of side tangents but it's all things that I agree with him on. I'll keep looking for a book about the pandemic that can step back and take a more encompassing view.
tifferschang's review
3.0
While refreshing to read a nuanced, balanced, well-researched expert's view on the pandemic, it is depressing to imagine what could have been with a different leader in charge, and with a society that hold different shared values. It is difficult to be optimistic that Americans will be able to learn any lessons from this, as we cannot even settle on whether the pandemic is over or not. Slavitt doesn't add anything that new that a lame person didn't know watching Trump on screen, but he does confirm that we were being gaslit by a charlatan-in-chief.