The COVID-19 Catastrophe

This expanded, updated, and completely revised edition of The COVID-19 Catastrophe is the authoritative guide to a global health crisis that has consumed the world. Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, scrutinises the actions taken by governments as they sought to contain the novel coronavirus. He shows that indecision and disregard for scientific evidence has led many political leaders to preside over hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and the worst global economic crisis for three centuries.

This new edition provides a systematic discussion of the pandemic’s course, national responses, more transmissible mutant variants of the virus, and the launch of the world’s largest ever vaccination programme.

Only now are we beginning to understand the full scale of the COVID-19 crisis. We need to learn the lessons of this pandemic, and we need to learn them fast, because the next pandemic may arrive sooner than we think.

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 From Wuhan to the World

2 Why Were We Not Prepared?

3 Science: The Paradox of Success and Failure

4 First Lines of Defence

5 The Politics of COVID-19

6 The Risk Society Revisited

7 Towards the Next Pandemic

Epilogue

Notes

�This is the book to read if you want to understand the response to COVID-19. Powerful, beautifully written and reflective. Richard Horton at his best.�
Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh

�The Editor of The Lancet pulls no punches. The pandemic has shattered our belief in Western exceptionalism and exposed the harsh underbelly of global inequality. A must-read.�
Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development, University College London

Praise for the first edition:

"Devastating… An incredibly powerful read."
—Piers Morgan, Good Morning Britain

"Vital and up to the minute."
—Nature

"A polemic of the first order."
—The Guardian

"a well-reasoned roar of rage at the failure of many western governments to follow the emerging scientific evidence about the pandemic potential of the novel coronavirus."
—The Financial Times

"uncompromisingly scathing."
—Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century

"Blistering but forensically detailed."
—Medical Republic

Selected as one of the Best Science Books of 2020 by the Financial Times