BREATHLESS

An authoritative new history of Covid-19 and its predecessors.

Prolific, award-winning science writer Quammen bring his story up to 2022, as the pandemic enters its third year with no end in sight. Authors who begin with 2019 events in the Wuhan meat market are fated to end with an anticlimax, but Quammen, casting his net more widely, does not have this problem. In addition to a hair-raising account of the ongoing pandemic, the author delivers an insightful education on public health and an introduction to numerous deadly epidemics over the past 50 years. He also educates readers about the centurylong history of the coronavirus, which produced two nasty epidemics before the current one. Once known as a mundane cause of the common cold, the first “killer coronavirus” emerged from a Chinese food market in 2003, killing about 800 of 8,000 victims across the world before disappearing. SARS-CoV didn’t spread until symptoms developed, so it was not difficult to identify cases, trace contacts, and set effective quarantine guidelines. This was also true of the MERS-CoV epidemic that began in 2012 and killed 76 of 178 people, mostly on the Arabian Peninsula. The current pandemic remains horrendously difficult to control because asymptomatic individuals can still spread the virus. Having delivered this bad news, Quammen chronicles his tours around the world (often via Zoom due to lockdowns), grilling a Greek chorus of nearly 100 scientists and health officials whose extensive biographies fill a 43-page appendix. Skirting the mostly dismal politics displayed by national leaders, the author constructs a masterful account of viral evolution culminating in Covid-19, which has displayed the dazzling ability to circumvent our natural and then technology-enhanced immune system. Perhaps the best news is that killing a host is irrelevant; viruses give priority to multiplying and spreading, so it’s possible that Covid-19 will adapt to our adaptations and grow less virulent. One of the latest variants, Omicron, is a dramatic example.

Unsettling global health news brilliantly delivered by an expert.