Politics, Protest, Pandemic: The Year That Changed Australian Politics by Eddy Jokovich and David Lewis

 

 

Politics, Protest, Pandemic is the story of the 2020 year in Australian federal politics, told through a collection of extended essays from the New Politics Australia podcast series. This was one of the most remarkable years in human history and there was an expectation that partisan politics could be put aside in the public interest and while that occurred in the earlier parts of the pandemic, it was back to business as soon as possible: point-scoring, media manipulations, corruption, and outright mistruths told by political leaders who should know better. The year commenced with the remnants of the catastrophic bushfire season still lingering in the air: Prime Minister Scott Morrison was pilloried for his lack of adequate responses at this time but was rescued, politically, through the arrival of the coronavirus. Australia performed remarkably well during this pandemic, but it could have been so much better. Opportunities to reset the economy and Australian society were overlooked, with the government's desire to 'snap-back' to the ways of the world before coronavirus started, even though that's a world that might have disappeared forever. An excellent guide to a dramatic year in Australian politics, providing historical viewpoints and references which enable the reader to navigate a thorough context and understanding of a confusing year.

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis

 

 

 

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.