System Failures and Public Health - Premonition by Michael Lewis

Intending public policy and Economics and Management students are recommended to read the latest book from Michael Lewis, author of the Big Short.

Aided by another cluster of richly interesting individual characters, Michael Lewis dissects the institutional failings in the USA's public health care system that left it fundamentally unprepared to deal with the coronavirus that has engulfed us all since the Spring of 2020.

A group of public health officers (known as the Wolverines) knew what was happening and took the initiative even though they were up against inefficient, ineffectual and institutionally moribund officials and organisations. In classic Lewis style, he chronicles their careers and their willingness to challenge conventional wisdom to create a system of pandemic planning that simply did not exist before. It is a compelling story and you may well finish it in just one or two sittings.