What Went Wrong

A wonderfully clear, even-handed, and insightful analysis of all the things that went wrong (and the few that went right) in handling the Covid pandemic. --Nicholas Wade, science writer, The New York Times What Went Wrong covers the most controversial aspects of the US handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's clear from reading the book that one of the biggest failures in the US response to COVID-19 was a failure of leadership, from our scientific and public health institutions to the White House. Greg provides an astute and painful reminder of what went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is a vital and necessary exercise to prevent it from happening again. Unless we learn from our past, we are destined to repeat it. --Francis Sweeney, MD, Straight Talk MD Podcast What Went Wrong takes a long, hard look at how the pandemic was handled in America. As Covid is unlikely to be the last pandemic, this book is a necessary stimulus to think hard about how we can do better next time. --Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Emeritus, Princeton University An essential text on the US Covid pandemic response. As a long-standing bioethicist, Pence has a clear-eyed view of how the excessively political Covid response in the US contributed to poorer outcomes in the country. Pence discusses harm reduction as a strategy to manage pandemics, the loss of trust in public health in the US, and ways--?via an honest appraisal and hard look at our response--?to regain that trust. This is a well-referenced and brilliant examination with a profoundly hopeful viewpoint that ethics will win out in future pandemics. --Monica Gandhi, director, UCSF-Bay Area Center for AIDS Research