What do you think?
Rate this book
What Went Wrong: America's Covid Response and Lessons for the Future
We thought we were a nation ready for any crisis. Covid showed us how much we have yet to learn.
America's response to Covid cost too many lives, set our children back in their education, and forever damaged our trust in our government's ability to protect and guide us through crises. Conflicting values and strategies received too little ethical consideration as we blindly followed an overly simplified prime directive to stop infections and save lives.
In What Went Wrong, Gregory Pence reveals how the best of intentions resulted in disastrous consequences for our nation. As many as 400,000 non-Covid deaths occurred as a by-product of poor planning and implementation of medical policies. We continue to realize the long-term effects on our nation, including millions of children now being years behind in reading and math. Proportionally, America suffered more deaths during the pandemic than any other developed country.
So where do we go from here? Hindsight on the pandemic shows us how important and complex the ethical implications of public health policy are. Unless we learn from America's failures, the next pandemic could be even worse.
America's response to Covid cost too many lives, set our children back in their education, and forever damaged our trust in our government's ability to protect and guide us through crises. Conflicting values and strategies received too little ethical consideration as we blindly followed an overly simplified prime directive to stop infections and save lives.
In What Went Wrong, Gregory Pence reveals how the best of intentions resulted in disastrous consequences for our nation. As many as 400,000 non-Covid deaths occurred as a by-product of poor planning and implementation of medical policies. We continue to realize the long-term effects on our nation, including millions of children now being years behind in reading and math. Proportionally, America suffered more deaths during the pandemic than any other developed country.
So where do we go from here? Hindsight on the pandemic shows us how important and complex the ethical implications of public health policy are. Unless we learn from America's failures, the next pandemic could be even worse.
200 pages, Hardcover
Published April 15, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 17, 2025
Gregory Pence's *What Went Wrong: America’s COVID Response and Lessons for the Future* takes a hard look at the mistakes the U.S. made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scheduled to release on April 15, 2025, this book focuses on the ethical and policy failures that led to the country being hit so hard by the virus. Pence argues that while efforts to save lives and stop infections were well-meaning, they were often shortsighted and missed the bigger picture. As a result, the U.S. not only faced devastating COVID-19 death tolls but also saw roughly 400,000 non-COVID deaths caused by poor planning and policy decisions.
The book doesn’t stop at health policy—it also tackles how the pandemic affected education, pointing out that millions of kids were left behind academically, especially in reading and math. Pence, who has nearly five decades of experience as a bioethicist, says these kinds of unintended consequences happened because decision-makers didn’t properly weigh the ethical trade-offs in their strategies.
What makes this book stand out is its focus on learning from these mistakes. Pence writes in a clear and even-handed way, breaking down where things went wrong and offering practical insights on how to do better next time. He emphasizes that if we don’t understand these failures, we risk repeating them in future pandemics.
Given Pence’s background—he’s written other works like *Pandemic Bioethics* and *Brave New Bioethics*—you can expect a thoughtful, informed analysis. His balanced critique makes this book a great read for anyone interested in public health, ethics, or just understanding how the U.S. can better prepare for future health crises.
In short, *What Went Wrong* is a sharp, thought-provoking look at America’s COVID-19 response, and it serves as both a critique and a call to action for better pandemic preparedness. 4 stars.
The book doesn’t stop at health policy—it also tackles how the pandemic affected education, pointing out that millions of kids were left behind academically, especially in reading and math. Pence, who has nearly five decades of experience as a bioethicist, says these kinds of unintended consequences happened because decision-makers didn’t properly weigh the ethical trade-offs in their strategies.
What makes this book stand out is its focus on learning from these mistakes. Pence writes in a clear and even-handed way, breaking down where things went wrong and offering practical insights on how to do better next time. He emphasizes that if we don’t understand these failures, we risk repeating them in future pandemics.
Given Pence’s background—he’s written other works like *Pandemic Bioethics* and *Brave New Bioethics*—you can expect a thoughtful, informed analysis. His balanced critique makes this book a great read for anyone interested in public health, ethics, or just understanding how the U.S. can better prepare for future health crises.
In short, *What Went Wrong* is a sharp, thought-provoking look at America’s COVID-19 response, and it serves as both a critique and a call to action for better pandemic preparedness. 4 stars.
December 2, 2025
3.5 stars
read for class but i liked it
read for class but i liked it
December 5, 2025
Read this for class (with the author I might add) and I enjoyed it! The book brings up a lot of interesting viewpoints that I was too young to question when the pandemic began. Very informative!
May 7, 2025
Ach! Covid-19! No one wants to hear about Covid anymore! Can't we just pretend it's over and move on to more important things, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico?
Well, in a nutshell, NO!
As we are all aware, mistakes were made in the Covid pandemic. We're human, we make mistakes. BUT....what have we learned, and what can we do to prepare for the next pandemic? That's why this book is important. Because there WILL be another pandemic in our future.
The author covers all this well. He writes well, at a level anybody can understand. He lays out the successes and the failures we made, More importantly, he explains what we need to do to prepare for "the next time".
I feel that this book is especially important right now. We, as a nation, are on the verge of rewriting history and covering up everything we learned about Covid. And sticking our heads in the sand will not make the problem go away.
This book should be required reading for EVERY congressman/woman, as well as our current president!
Well, in a nutshell, NO!
As we are all aware, mistakes were made in the Covid pandemic. We're human, we make mistakes. BUT....what have we learned, and what can we do to prepare for the next pandemic? That's why this book is important. Because there WILL be another pandemic in our future.
The author covers all this well. He writes well, at a level anybody can understand. He lays out the successes and the failures we made, More importantly, he explains what we need to do to prepare for "the next time".
I feel that this book is especially important right now. We, as a nation, are on the verge of rewriting history and covering up everything we learned about Covid. And sticking our heads in the sand will not make the problem go away.
This book should be required reading for EVERY congressman/woman, as well as our current president!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews