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A review by phidgt
Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus by David Quammen
5.0
David Quammen is by far the best science writer I have come across. He has an amazing ability to write about complex scientific matters in such an interesting manner that is not only comprehensible, but makes you actually feel smarter. David Quammen is one of those authors where you will want to read everything he has written.
In particular, “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic”, published in 2012, was the book that really hooked me. I became an absolute sponge in all matters regarding zoonosis, infectious diseases, and all of the science surrounding the study of viruses.
Fast forward to January 2020 and the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. When in March 2020 then President Trump claimed, “Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion. Nobody's ever seen anything like this before”, I was astonished. SARS, H5N1 avian influenza, Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, Zika - all within the last two decades. “Nobody could have known a thing like this could happen”. Really?
"Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus" is a scientific detective story, a global hunt for the origins of a virus to gain understanding on how this particular coronavirus came to be and how we can better prepare for the next one. Fair warning; this is not a light read, loads of science, however, I found it to be absolutely riveting and I now want to be a molecular evolutionary virologist in my next lifetime.
As David Quammen states "["Breathless"] is a book about the science of SARS-CoV-2". It is not about COVID-19 or the suffering, the toll of lives, the mistakes and disfunction of governments. "Breathless" is also about the scientists and their race to find answers to extremely urgent questions. However much knowledge still needs to be gained, one thing is for certain, there will be another pandemic.
In particular, “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic”, published in 2012, was the book that really hooked me. I became an absolute sponge in all matters regarding zoonosis, infectious diseases, and all of the science surrounding the study of viruses.
Fast forward to January 2020 and the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. When in March 2020 then President Trump claimed, “Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion. Nobody's ever seen anything like this before”, I was astonished. SARS, H5N1 avian influenza, Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, Zika - all within the last two decades. “Nobody could have known a thing like this could happen”. Really?
"Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus" is a scientific detective story, a global hunt for the origins of a virus to gain understanding on how this particular coronavirus came to be and how we can better prepare for the next one. Fair warning; this is not a light read, loads of science, however, I found it to be absolutely riveting and I now want to be a molecular evolutionary virologist in my next lifetime.
As David Quammen states "["Breathless"] is a book about the science of SARS-CoV-2". It is not about COVID-19 or the suffering, the toll of lives, the mistakes and disfunction of governments. "Breathless" is also about the scientists and their race to find answers to extremely urgent questions. However much knowledge still needs to be gained, one thing is for certain, there will be another pandemic.