The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

Michael Lewis

May 2021 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

New York Times Bestseller

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.

Ratings and reviews

Did you know, our death stats are not of just covid deaths but they are of flu, covid and ammonia deaths? As well what we consider a death is anyone who has died, regardless of to what, who has tested positive for covid within the last 60 days. When my aunt died of cancer and it was classified as a covid death even though she had shown no signs of any covid symptom I know this whole thing was a farce. It's a serious problem, like all viral infections and deaths. But what's the true danger and threat it posses? Sadly we will never know because of how muddled this whole thing has become. This is one reason why there is no blame on anyone but the extreme panicers and the people who misinflated and dilluted the stats. Shame on science, shame on us, we truly need to learn from our mistakes from this "pandemic"

Everyone should read this, to see how spectacularly we as a country and Trump specifically failed. The pandemic didn't need to be this bad. We made it this bad.

A book that should be rewritten in another couple of years once the reality of what occurred can be ascertained. Reduced rating to one star. Book was written in haste prior to any real research or understanding.

About the author

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.