I remember one of the first truly scary movies I ever saw: The Andromeda Strain. This book follows the same template: a previously unknown virus emerges and starts killing people, spreading rapidly. Of course, Andromeda was science fiction, and SARS was all too real. Greenfield, the former head of TIME Asia, observed the epidemic’s growth from his home in Hong Kong. He’s written a compelling day-by-day narrative of the progress of the outbreak, beginning with its initial spread from restaurant workers in Shenzhen to the waning days of the epidemic. Along the way, he clearly explains the scientific and political obstacles faced by the scientists who were trying to pinpoint the etiology of SARS and how to treat it.
Greenfield’s account gives a great deal of credit to some individual scientists, which IMHO is as it should be. He also lambasts the Chinese government for its obstructionist and deceitful response in the first two-thirds of the outbreak, which is also fitting, given how their delays and obfuscations needlessly killed their own citizens.
If I have any quibbles with the book, they’re with Greenfield’s somewhat breathless narrative style. I sometimes felt like I was reading a several-hundred-page-long magazine article. Greenfield nails the story, though, and his conclusion– that the human race dodged a bullet– is right on. Highly recommended. (However, don’t read it while traveling unless you want to suffer panic attacks every time someone near you on the airplane coughs or sneezes.)
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