Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic

by Scott Gottlieb Narrated by Fred Sanders

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Uncontrolled Spread is everything you'd hope: a smart and insightful account of what happened and, currently, the best guide to what needs to be done to avoid a future pandemic."" -Wall Street Journal

“Informative and well paced.”-The Guardian

“An intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future.”-Sanjay Gupta, MD, chief medical correspondent, CNN

Physician and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb asks: Has America's COVID-19 catastrophe taught us anything?

In Uncontrolled Spread, he shows how the coronavirus and its variants were able to trounce America's pandemic preparations, and he outlines the steps that must be taken to protect against the next outbreak. As the pandemic unfolded, Gottlieb was in regular contact with all the key players in Congress, the Trump administration, and the drug and diagnostic industries. He provides an inside account of how level after level of American government crumbled as the COVID-19 crisis advanced.

A system-wide failure across government institutions left the nation blind to the threat, and unable to mount an effective response. We'd prepared for the wrong virus. We failed to identify the contagion early enough and became overly reliant on costly and sometimes divisive tactics that couldn't fully slow the spread. We never considered asymptomatic transmission and we assumed people would follow public health guidance. Key bureaucracies like the CDC were hidebound and outmatched. Weak political leadership aggravated these woes. We didn't view a public health disaster as a threat to our national security.

Many of the woes sprung from the CDC, which has very little real-time reporting capability to inform us of Covid's twists and turns or assess our defenses. The agency lacked an operational capacity and mindset to mobilize the kind of national response that was needed. To guard against future pandemic risks, we must remake the CDC and properly equip it to better confront crises. We must also get our intelligence services more engaged in the global public health mission, to gather information and uncover emerging risks before they hit our shores so we can head them off. For this role, our clandestine agencies have tools and capabilities that the CDC lacks.

Uncontrolled Spread argues we must fix our systems and prepare for a deadlier coronavirus variant, a flu pandemic, or whatever else nature -- or those wishing us harm -- may threaten us with. Gottlieb outlines policies and investments that are essential to prepare the United States and the world for future threats.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

“Throughout the pandemic, no one — and I mean no one — has provided a clearer and more correct picture of what was happening to our country than Dr. Gottlieb. All the while he was sought out to provide more advice to decision-makers on all sides of the aisle than anyone. In Uncontrolled Spread, he is doing perhaps the ultimate service in telling the story to us in a gripping, no holds barred, yet highly constructive fashion. This book will be one of the bibles of this era.” - Andy Slavitt, former White House senior advisor for the COVID-19 response
“Uncontrolled Spread is everything you’d hope: a smart and insightful account of what happened and, currently, the best guide to what needs to be done to avoid a future pandemic." - Wall Street Journal
"I have known Scott for many years… and can verify that when he was FDA Commissioner, he was a force against useless bureaucracy... He is a reformer, and this book reveals his laser focus on trying to stay ahead the pandemic from the beginning." - Marc Siegel, M.D., RealClearHealth
"I believe Uncontrolled Spread will be the most authoritative book on the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. out of the many books that will be written." - Martin Makary M.D., M.P.H., Editor-in-Chief, MedPage Today
"The past two years should lead to a wholesale transformation of the CDC, and Gottlieb offers a lot of ideas about what that should involve." - National Review
“In his narrative of the most severe pandemic in a century, Gottlieb lets us know what he has seen, what may well come next and what we can do before the next pandemic arrives. The book is informative and well paced.” - The Guardian
“In Uncontrolled Spread, one thing is certain: Scott Gottlieb is in total control. Throughout the pandemic, my friend Scott consistently provided remarkable insights and clarity that advanced our collective knowledge. Through his medical acumen, decades of experience and insider access as former FDA commissioner, he was able to paint a clear portrait of what was happening, even as it was still blurry to everyone else. Uncontrolled Spread will make you anxious, and it should. It is an intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future.” - Sanjay Gupta, M.D., chief medical correspondent, CNN
“This is the book for anyone who wants to really understand the true story of how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in our country. In Uncontrolled Spread, Dr. Scott Gottlieb provides a gripping and rich narrative of the worst public health and economic crisis of our lifetime. His book is extremely well-researched and enriched by firsthand exchanges with key leaders in government, academia, and the private sector. It offers unique perspectives from the vantage point of one of the most experienced public health leaders in America. Importantly, it provides a lucid assessment of what we need to do to avert a repeat catastrophe.” - Luciana Borio, M.D., former director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness, National Security Council
“Dr. Gottlieb not only served as a trusted advisor to the NYSE and many of the companies listed on our Exchange throughout the pandemic but also consistently delivered expert analysis and pragmatic advice to all Americans. Now, with Uncontrolled Spread, he is stepping up again to share the many lessons learned from this challenging chapter in our country’s history.” - Stacey Cunningham, President, New York Stock Exchange

Kirkus Reviews

2021-07-15
The former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration assesses the systemic failures underlying the world response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Numerous public entities within the federal government, writes Gottlieb, are charged with preparing for the outbreak of epidemic diseases. Most of their energies were directed toward fighting the flu. “The federal government started off in a weak position, with plans that were ill suited to countering a coronavirus,” writes the author. “This mismatch between the scenarios we drilled for and the reality that we faced left us unprepared. Poor execution turned it into a public health tragedy.” It took time, of course, to recognize fully that Covid-19 spread through a handful of “superspreaders” and mostly indoors in areas that were both crowded and poorly ventilated—the White House during Trump’s frequent self-congratulatory public events, for one. Trump, Gottlieb makes clear, bears plenty of responsibility for the government’s inadequate response, as do lieutenants who politicized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suppressed information, and followed Trump’s lead in rejecting mask-wearing and other safety measures. “The president could have found a middle ground on masks,” Gottlieb writes. “His message could have been: We don’t need mandates….However, we’re going to act responsibly and wear masks.” The author argues that even under different leadership, the response would likely have been little better, at least in part because there is not enough coordination among agencies. He urges that preparation for pandemics be considered a part of national security, with the Pentagon fully involved and with a system that works its way around informed consent “to address a public health emergency” so that data is quickly shared. Moreover, he argues that testing procedures be standardized, as they are not now, with a full inventory of equipment in both public and private hands. These and other measures are urgently needed: If Covid-19 was the worst pandemic in recent history, “it won’t be the last.”

Of considerable interest to health policymakers and public-safety officials as well as students of epidemic disease.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176320633
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/21/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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