A new book, written with Michael Stein, which looks backward and forward through the lens of the COVID moment.
In 2021, the US was at a turning point. We had just lived through the acute phase of a global pandemic. During that time, the country had experienced an economic crisis, civil unrest, a deeply divisive federal election, and a technological revolution in how we live, work, and congregate. The emergence of COVID-19 vaccines allowed us, finally, to look ahead to a post-pandemic world, but what would that world be like? Would it be a return to the pre-COVID status quo, or would it be something radically new?
It was with these questions in mind that, in 2021, I partnered with my good colleague, Michael Stein, to write a series of essays reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim with the essays was to engage with the COVID moment through the lens of cutting-edge public health science. By exploring the pandemic’s intersection with topics like digital surveillance, vaccine distribution, big data, and the link between science and political decision-making, we tried to sketch what the moment meant while it unfolded, and what its implications might be for the future. If journalism is “the first rough draft of history”, these essays were, in a way, our effort to produce just such a draft, from the perspective of a forward-looking public health. I am delighted to announce that a book based on this series of essays has just been published by Oxford University Press. Its title is The Turning Point: Reflections on a Pandemic.
Read more here.