BOOKS: The Premonition: Michael Lewis

Aug. 14—In "The Premonition: A Pandemic Story," author Michael Lewis spends more pages looking at the years leading up to the pandemic than with COVID-19.

Lewis introduces the health officials who formulated plans for how to respond to a pandemic and people who dealt with infectious viruses. And how all of their plans were lost, ignored and rejected when the real thing came along ... at least at first.

These are bold thinkers who think not just outside of the box but inside, outside, below, above, how the box is manufactured, where it comes from, what materials are used and not used in its construction, etc.

And they are bold actors who have the courage of conviction, who are willing to risk their careers to do their jobs and save others.

President George W. Bush was no stranger to unexpected things happening — the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the massive destruction of Hurricane Katrina. He read a book about the flu epidemic of 1918 and discovered the United States had no real plan for pandemic response. He issued orders to rectify this oversight because he knew the unexpected could be expected.

Some of the main people in Lewis' book worked together to formulate a pandemic response plan during Bush's presidency. Others worked in other fields but they all began working together in the face of COVID-19.

They faced a series of hurdles of willful ignorance from President Donald Trump and the majority of his administration to cowardice, silence and reluctance from other health officials hoping to save their jobs.

Lewis writes this non-fiction book with the suspense of a thriller and with the depth of character research often found in a novel.

Lewis doesn't spend a lot of time focusing on the failures of the Trump administration in "The Premonition." Instead, he looks at the failures of the health system on local, state and national levels. He also throws stones at the much-vaunted reputation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — not for ordering mask mandates, social distancing, etc., but for not acting fast enough ... for looking for research rather seeking the best methods to save lives early on.

For readers who think the response to COVID-19 has been over dramatic, the people featured in this book are the people to blame. But for readers who realize the importance of the measures they have preached and the untold number of lives they have saved even in the face of hundreds of thousands of deaths, these people deserve our praise.