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World War C: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic and How to Prepare for the Next One
CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, MD, offers an accessible, data-packed answer to our biggest questions about What have we learned about this pandemic and how can we prepare for—or prevent—the next one?As America’s favorite frontline Covid-19 health journalist, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has barely left his primetime seat in his makeshift studio basement since the pandemic began (other than to perform brain surgery). He’s had insider access to the drama’s unfolding, including exclusive conversations with the world’s top public health experts and behind-the-scenes scientists racing to find treatments and cures. And now he’s sharing what he’s learned in a book that will answer not only all our questions about what happened, but also about how our world will change in the years ahead, even once we’re back to “normal.” Gupta argues that we need to prepare for a new era where pandemics will be more frequent, and possibly even more deadly. As the doctor who’s been holding America’s hand through the crisis with compassion, clarity, and well-earned wisdom, he gives you the unvarnished story behind the pandemic, including insights about the novel virus’s behavior, and offers practical tools to ready ourselves for what lies ahead. He answers critical Can we stamp out the virus for good (and if not, how do we live with it)? Should we put our parents in a nursing home? Where should we live? What should we stockpile? What should we know before taking a trip? Does it make sense to spend more on health insurance to deal with any long-term effects? How do you decide when it’s safe to go to a public pool or schedule elective surgery? What should Covid survivors know about protecting their future health? What if you become a long-hauler with chronic health challenges stemming? World War C will give you hope for the future along with real information that leaves you more resilient and secure.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 5, 2021
138 people are currently reading
953 people want to read
About the author
Sanjay Gupta
124 books395 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database
Sanjay Gupta is an American physician and a contributing CNN chief health correspondent based in Atlanta, Georgia. An assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine and associate chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, he is also a frequent guest on the news program Anderson Cooper 360°. "Charity Hospital" won a 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast. From 1997 to 1998, he served as one of fifteen White House Fellows, primarily as an advisor to Hillary Clinton. Gupta currently publishes a column in TIME magazine. He is also host of House Call with Dr Sanjay Gupta. His book Chasing Life was a New York Times and National bestseller. As of January 2009, he has been offered the position of Surgeon General of the United States in the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama; the final vetting is currently under way.
Sanjay Gupta is an American physician and a contributing CNN chief health correspondent based in Atlanta, Georgia. An assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine and associate chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, he is also a frequent guest on the news program Anderson Cooper 360°. "Charity Hospital" won a 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast. From 1997 to 1998, he served as one of fifteen White House Fellows, primarily as an advisor to Hillary Clinton. Gupta currently publishes a column in TIME magazine. He is also host of House Call with Dr Sanjay Gupta. His book Chasing Life was a New York Times and National bestseller. As of January 2009, he has been offered the position of Surgeon General of the United States in the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama; the final vetting is currently under way.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
December 15, 2021
Sanjay Gupta MD gives us a realistic look at the Covid-19 pandemic. He's optimistic that we can do better in preparing for the next pandemic if we learn from the present one. Dr Gupta is a neurosurgeon and the CNN chief medical correspondent. He interviewed public health experts and scientists around the world while he was writing "World War C."
Dr Gupta discusses other pandemics, the biology of viruses, how various vaccines work, and how our immune system fights Covid and other diseases. He tells what could have been done better in educating the public, while he also realizes we were dealing with a novel disease. An important difference in Covid was the number of people who were spreading the disease while remaining asymptomatic themselves.
He writes about assessing risk factors, vaccine hesitancy, and the misinformation that is circulating on social media sites. Dr Gupta encourages people to make healthy decisions--masking, vaccinations, social distancing, eating well, exercising, getting adequate sleep, and keeping a healthy weight--to reduce our chances of severe illness or death from Covid.
"World War C" is written in an accessible way while also giving lots of interesting scientific information, especially in the first few chapters. The importance of thinking globally is emphasized. Dr Gupta reminds us that viruses do not take vacations, even when we may want to relax our guard. 4.5 stars.
Dr Gupta discusses other pandemics, the biology of viruses, how various vaccines work, and how our immune system fights Covid and other diseases. He tells what could have been done better in educating the public, while he also realizes we were dealing with a novel disease. An important difference in Covid was the number of people who were spreading the disease while remaining asymptomatic themselves.
He writes about assessing risk factors, vaccine hesitancy, and the misinformation that is circulating on social media sites. Dr Gupta encourages people to make healthy decisions--masking, vaccinations, social distancing, eating well, exercising, getting adequate sleep, and keeping a healthy weight--to reduce our chances of severe illness or death from Covid.
"World War C" is written in an accessible way while also giving lots of interesting scientific information, especially in the first few chapters. The importance of thinking globally is emphasized. Dr Gupta reminds us that viruses do not take vacations, even when we may want to relax our guard. 4.5 stars.
July 29, 2021
Essential reading and an essential buy for the public library. Gupta traces the origins of the pandemic, explores what could have been done better and what we did do right, and how we can continue to be vigilant in the future. He takes a neutral, fact-based approach, which means that parts of the book may upset people on the different sides of the political spectrum - there were a few parts that infuriated me - but I know Gupta's work is highly researched and well-intentioned. Like we all are, constantly, I had to question my own beliefs and thoughts. Gupta's credentials as a surgeon and health reporter give him the authority to write about this topic and to pick it apart, going back to other pandemics such as Ebola and SARS and predicting what could happen with future COVID variants and future deadly diseases.
October 16, 2021
A good overall review of the Covid pandemic. I particularly liked the first half. I think his explanation of the science of vaccines was fascinating. I found the last half to feel somewhat repetitive to his other work and felt almost like “filler”
October 31, 2021
I wanted to know yet I felt that I’d already had enough of this disaster. When the cover of this book came across my computer scene, I wanted to read another “expert’s” opinion of this life changing event but yet, I felt I’d really had enough of Covid and what could this doctor really tell me that I hadn’t already heard? With over a year of restrictions, testing, quarantines, and now vaccinations, did I really want to read 300+ pages of more information and opinions? The synopsis had plenty of interesting topics that sparked my curiosity: what had led us into our current pandemic, how could we prepare ourselves for a future pandemic (because folks, there will be another one). Sanjay was also going to comment on whether Covid was going to be a part of our lives forever or whether it would finally die itself out. I was hoping that his insight and information would provide some interesting information or at least something different than what I have already heard.
I’ll be honest and say that, a few sections of this book were WAY over my head. I’m not a doctor or a nurse, nor do I have any medical field experience. I’m a mother and a Nana which gives me some medical experience but my badges of an accountant, substitute teacher, volunteer, and a devoted book reader don’t give me the background to handle some of the terms and procedures that Sanjay was mentioning in this book. I did my best trying to decipher these sections of the book which included DNA, RNA, and chemical reactions, but some of it was just tumbling around in my head. He talked about the origins of infectious diseases which I thought was interesting. Finding the origins of these illnesses and when they began is important as it can say a lot about the disease. Previously many infectious diseases began from domestic animals and I remembered that they were linking Covid to bats. The common cold originally began in a camel and pigs and birds are the sources of the many strains of the flu. Makes me wonder, if they can give us these diseases, do humans give them any diseases?
Sanjay talks about a Global Health Security Risk which I thought was interesting. This Security Risk was assembled by “the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the John Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU) and was developed with The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).” The purpose of this index was “these organizations believe that, over time, the GHS Index will spur measurable changes in national health security and improve international capability to address one of the world’s most omnipresent risks: infectious disease outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics.” This index was created in Oct 2019, this was before the pandemic. How was the U.S. ranked out the of 195 countries? Number 1, they scored 83.5 out of 100, the best prepared county to handle a pandemic/epidemic. The United Kingdom received a 77.9 and New Zealand a 54. YET, and I say yet, we all know what happened in the U.S. The U.S., according to the graphs that I saw on the news, they didn’t look like they were the best prepared. Sanjay makes a point by saying that the United States has 4% of the world’s population but they had 22% of the world’s total infections of this disease by the end of 2020. That’s like taking “Ten (10) Airbus 320 Jetliners with 150 individuals on board and having them all fall from the sky, every day! We haven’t even considered the number of lives that were lost in 2021.
https://www.ghsindex.org/
“Had we taken action and carried out control measures, like physical distancing and masking up just one or two weeks earlier, a report created at Columbia University states that more than half of the deaths and illnesses could have been avoided.” Sanjay gives more details about this topic and like many, he has his data to back it up.
So, what’s the future hold? I thought what Sanjay said made sense and he used PROOF to organize his points. Sanjay believes that Covid is here to stay, just like many other professionals. Learning how to live together, each of us will need to adapt, change and respond to one another. Using PROOF, Sanjay makes some valuable points about risks, the internet, keeping vigil, and planning.
Overall, I thought it was a great book for me. I liked his mindset and the book didn’t feel overloaded with emotions and turmoil. I thought Sanjay was honest and he shared a variety of different topics in the book. There were some parts of the book that were difficult for me to read terminology, but I managed. 4.5 stars
I’ll be honest and say that, a few sections of this book were WAY over my head. I’m not a doctor or a nurse, nor do I have any medical field experience. I’m a mother and a Nana which gives me some medical experience but my badges of an accountant, substitute teacher, volunteer, and a devoted book reader don’t give me the background to handle some of the terms and procedures that Sanjay was mentioning in this book. I did my best trying to decipher these sections of the book which included DNA, RNA, and chemical reactions, but some of it was just tumbling around in my head. He talked about the origins of infectious diseases which I thought was interesting. Finding the origins of these illnesses and when they began is important as it can say a lot about the disease. Previously many infectious diseases began from domestic animals and I remembered that they were linking Covid to bats. The common cold originally began in a camel and pigs and birds are the sources of the many strains of the flu. Makes me wonder, if they can give us these diseases, do humans give them any diseases?
Sanjay talks about a Global Health Security Risk which I thought was interesting. This Security Risk was assembled by “the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the John Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU) and was developed with The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).” The purpose of this index was “these organizations believe that, over time, the GHS Index will spur measurable changes in national health security and improve international capability to address one of the world’s most omnipresent risks: infectious disease outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics.” This index was created in Oct 2019, this was before the pandemic. How was the U.S. ranked out the of 195 countries? Number 1, they scored 83.5 out of 100, the best prepared county to handle a pandemic/epidemic. The United Kingdom received a 77.9 and New Zealand a 54. YET, and I say yet, we all know what happened in the U.S. The U.S., according to the graphs that I saw on the news, they didn’t look like they were the best prepared. Sanjay makes a point by saying that the United States has 4% of the world’s population but they had 22% of the world’s total infections of this disease by the end of 2020. That’s like taking “Ten (10) Airbus 320 Jetliners with 150 individuals on board and having them all fall from the sky, every day! We haven’t even considered the number of lives that were lost in 2021.
https://www.ghsindex.org/
“Had we taken action and carried out control measures, like physical distancing and masking up just one or two weeks earlier, a report created at Columbia University states that more than half of the deaths and illnesses could have been avoided.” Sanjay gives more details about this topic and like many, he has his data to back it up.
So, what’s the future hold? I thought what Sanjay said made sense and he used PROOF to organize his points. Sanjay believes that Covid is here to stay, just like many other professionals. Learning how to live together, each of us will need to adapt, change and respond to one another. Using PROOF, Sanjay makes some valuable points about risks, the internet, keeping vigil, and planning.
Overall, I thought it was a great book for me. I liked his mindset and the book didn’t feel overloaded with emotions and turmoil. I thought Sanjay was honest and he shared a variety of different topics in the book. There were some parts of the book that were difficult for me to read terminology, but I managed. 4.5 stars
October 11, 2021
Well-documented and presented in a lively conversational style. Written without prejudice or politics. Medical facts make this mysterious virus a bit more understandable.
January 12, 2022
Published in 2021, this book on pandemics, esp. Covid, is very thought provoking. It does very well at reiterating that the unknowns of Covid are there to be studied and seen for many years to come. Also has guidelines on how to change your life since Covid is here to stay.
“ But vaccines may have done more good for humanity than any other medical advance in history.”
“ Hotez believes that antiscience is one of the biggest threats to humanity, on par with a nuclear weapon.”
“ But vaccines may have done more good for humanity than any other medical advance in history.”
“ Hotez believes that antiscience is one of the biggest threats to humanity, on par with a nuclear weapon.”
March 1, 2022
Nice easy to read and understand book on COVID-19. Gupta covers everything from what viruses are, how humans discovered them, the coronaviruses and eventually COVID-19. He goes into science of contagious diseases, and recommendations for government, public health and personal care. Nice book.
December 7, 2021
If you've been obsessively following the Covid news like I have there is very little of interest here. Probably especially because one of my sources during the first year of the pandemic was Dr. Gupta himself. If you've been largely tuning it out, then this will give you a pretty chill outlook on the situation. I am not feeling particularly chill with the rates of long covid and omicron coming, but feel free to read and decide.
November 16, 2021
I wasn't going to listen to this one because I was under the impression that Sanjay Gupta was The Oprah doctor, and given his reputation I wasn't interested in the slightest. Good thing I bothered googling because this is a good book by a serious doctor.
Gupta takes us to the initial phases of the pandemic in China and the neighboring countries. He pulls no punches when it comes to China, so that's a bonus. The book is too centered in the USA, and a few parts might be of little interest to international readers, but you can always skip them. Gupta goes throw several aspects of the pandemic, errors made, silver linings, the outline for the future, and what we can do as both, individuals and nations, to be better prepared for the next one. He provides a very comprehensive but easy to understand analysis.
I wish editors told authors when they're doing the same thing they criticize somewhere in their book. In this case, Gupta warns us about taking sad, isolated anecdotes to drive points, yet he does exactly the same thing several times.
One flaw I see is that Gupta often talks in past tense and often sends the message that the pandemic is pretty much over, yet current reality in many countries, some of which we're supposed to be doing better now, defies this idea. The great book on COVID as part of the past won't be written for a long, long time, my man.
Gupta takes us to the initial phases of the pandemic in China and the neighboring countries. He pulls no punches when it comes to China, so that's a bonus. The book is too centered in the USA, and a few parts might be of little interest to international readers, but you can always skip them. Gupta goes throw several aspects of the pandemic, errors made, silver linings, the outline for the future, and what we can do as both, individuals and nations, to be better prepared for the next one. He provides a very comprehensive but easy to understand analysis.
I wish editors told authors when they're doing the same thing they criticize somewhere in their book. In this case, Gupta warns us about taking sad, isolated anecdotes to drive points, yet he does exactly the same thing several times.
One flaw I see is that Gupta often talks in past tense and often sends the message that the pandemic is pretty much over, yet current reality in many countries, some of which we're supposed to be doing better now, defies this idea. The great book on COVID as part of the past won't be written for a long, long time, my man.
November 20, 2024
Good book. Not great. Good.
Dr. Gupta's book was supposed to be about what we learned about the pandemic. How we can prepare for the next pandemic. And how we can potentially prevent the next pandemic.
What we learned.
POSTMORTEM Chapter starts with the deaths of 2 outlier victims of Covid-19. A 22 year old, a 41 year old and a long haul covid victim that was 53 years old.
No mention that the people he was highlighting were outliers.
The 22 year old was one of 1,483 such individuals aged 18-29, who perished from Covid-19 in 2020. Yet 1,765 individuals aged 18-29 also died from pneumonia that year. Deaths from all causes for that demographic (18-29) were 63,403 in 2020.
The biggest and hardest hit demographic in 2020, was the 85 and older age group. Covid was attributed with 122,820 deaths for that age group in 2020. No mention that a good number of those people died from dehydration, rather than Covid itself.
So why highlight the outlier? Over 3.3 million Americans died from something in 2020. Only 385,430 from Covid. Why highlight a 22 year old that represented such a number in such a small demographic?
The facts and the statistics are in front of everyone to read for themselves. Covid, like any other disease, can target the young, the middle aged and the old. Much like the #1 source of death, heart disease, which took out 659,000 Americans in 2019. Or cancer, which was responsible for 599,000 mortalities in 2019.
What is different about this one, is how and who it attacks. Which Dr. Gupta does little justice to.
Sanjay briefly touches on the ill preparedness of the federal government in this chapter. See Michael Lewis's book "The Premonition" for a better explanation on how messed up the USA's government is in regards to starting things like pandemic planning and then shelving them with each new administration's tenure.
There is finally mention however, throughout the book, that it is a disease of the more affluent nations. That obesity, diabetes, kidney disease and cardiovascular disorders are the co-morbidities often associated with a negative outcome were the person with these disorders contract Covid-19.
What Sanjay doesn't do in his book, is dive deeper into the science. Interestingly, he cites using pubmed.gov. Which is awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the very good articles can only be viewed by subscribing or paying for them. There are other sites, and the most interesting, but not highly publicized articles are luckily free, as their authors are not seeking monetary compensation during these trying times.
The interesting part, is that Sanjay, does not talk about how the virus infects us. Even though he says in his book that it is important that scientific leaders educate the public.
Why it is targeting obese and hypertensive individuals?
The ACE-2 receptor (as he mentions in Chapter 3, Big and Sticky section) is how the virus gets in. But he stops right there. Full stop. No mention of what the ACE-2 Receptor is for. Or why it exists.
Here's why.
The Ace-2 receptor is part of a feedback loop system called the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone-System (RAAS). If your kidneys are NOT getting enough blood flowing through them (due to either hemorrhage or dehydration), your blood pressure will drop. The RAAS system is activated to ensure that blood pressure stays normal. Renin is secreted by the kidneys and marries with Angiotensinogen from the liver to form Angiotensin I. ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme) coming from our lungs, converts Angiotensin I into Angiotensin II, which is a vasodilator. Angiotensin II locks into AT1R receptors in your epithelial cells to vasoconstrict blood vessels. Raising Blood Pressure. This is called the HARMFUL phase of RAAS, as a number of BAD things happen as payment for your body trying to regulate blood pressure by having to squeeze its own blood vessels. One of those BAD things, is that the ACE2 receptor, sits there, bound to the membrane of whatever cell it happens to be expressed upon. In this state, the ACE2 receptor is said to be membrane bound or mACE2.
So what does this have to do with ACE2 and Covid?
A team of epidemiologists suggested the tie in with hydration and Covid in November of 2020. Not a single government entity has cited this research.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
When you close off that hemorrhage and rehydrate with an IV, or when you reestablish your hydration levels (BY DRINKING WATER), RAAS starts its PROTECTIVE phase. Adam17, a sheddase family enzyme, cleaves membrane bound mACE2 receptors making them soluble. The soluble ACE2 (sACE2) then binds with Angiotensin II to form Angiotensin I-7 which binds to MaS Receptors and vasodilate the blood vessels that were vasoconstricted by Angiotensin II.
But that's not all.
The cleaved mACE2 receptors are no longer susceptible to Covid-19 infection. COV2 can only infect membrane bound ACE2 receptors (mACE2). Once cleaved, the actual receptor part (soluble ACE2 or sACE2) is not only attracted to Angiotensin II (to form Angiotensin I-7), but if there are COV2 viruses in the vicinity, they potentially latch on to the Spike S protein on the COV2 virus, making that binding site inert.
Don't believe me. Read this one for yourself.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
What does this mean?
It means that people that have high blood pressure problems, people that are chronically dehydrated (as most obese people are), have their membrane bound mACE2 receptors expressed like sitting ducks for Covid-19 to get in and start a full blow infection.
According to National Academy of Sciences, you should be drinking up to 2.7L of water a day (if you are a woman) and 3.7L of water a day if you are a man. Including food. That is a recommendation from 2004. Never mind diuretics like coffee and tea and caffeinated drinks. Never mind diuretic medicines, or stress. Which further dehydrates. Which means if you don't drink enough water, you are more susceptible to Covid-19.
Type in "National Academy of Sciences Hydration Levels" to get the report. The link was insanely long to post here.
Dr. Gupta does mention that one of his colleagues believes with 85% certainty that the virus was created in the Wuhan laboratory. Very likely true, simply because mankind has yet to discover the animal that was responsible for the zoonotic transmission to humans.
I could go on and on about the things that Sanjay left out. He did a good job about presenting "risk" however, I will give him that. Well done.
Sanjay states that we should not shame the antivaxxers. "Share, don't shame." Yet how does that dovetail into Sanjay recommending that his readers search out long term health care facilities that mandate vaccinations.
Last I checked, vaccinations do not stop infections. They do not stop transmission. They do not stop one from dying from Covid-19. So why the push to ostracize those that need more data before getting the jab?
How to prepare for the next pandemic?
Plan ahead. Good luck with that one. Maybe for the rest of the world. USA governments redo all their internal plans with every new administration. See Michael Lewis's "The Premonition" for details. Plus the next pandemic will likely come from an avian industrial farm. See Dr. Michael Greger's "How to survive a pandemic."
Rethink and Rewire. While I will admit that Sanjay did a good job talking about relative vs absolute risk, he did not take into account the fact that governments have lied and continue to lie to their people. To suddenly come out with "trust us" as a slogan, just doesn't work when people have been fed lies too numerous to mention. 75 years to disclose JFK papers but he was assassinated by a lone gunman? Building 7 suddenly falling for no reason whatsoever at 5pm? Iraq full of weapons of mass destruction? We don't need gold tied to the US dollar? 32 Trillion dollars really isn't a problem? 1 Trillion dollars in defense budget every year is a good thing? Or how about the latest head scracter. Phizer wants to take 70 years to release all of its safety data to the public. Good luck with that.
Optimal Health. This is a tough one. But not really. This disease is disease of the affluent. Just under half of the world's cases are centered in the land of the free and the home of the twinkie. Of the worlds 29M cases, 13M of them are in the USA. This disease targets the blood pressure system. The HARMFUL phase of the RAAS system trying to continuously raise blood pressure, due to dehydration. If you are obese, you have blood pressure problems. You are a Covid-19 target. Plain and simple. Please do follow Sanjay's advice. But what he missed out, is that you will have a tougher time doing that on a meat based diet. Plant based, staying away from refined plant based foods and fried foods will get you to nirvana. And of course, hydrate optimally.
Organize family. This part was geared for USA residents. With a bit of stuff for all world inhabitants. The part that didn't make sense was the fact he actually states we need to "Learn to live with Germs." If his friends Metzl and Redfield are vindicated in their theories that this virus was as a result of a lab leak (through a gain of function experiment), then there is no WAY to predict what the next lab leak will wreak upon humanity. We can learn to live with the natural ones, yes. Because they evolve at the same relative rates as humanity has (they don't want to kill their hosts, only proliferate), with the occasional zoonotic crossover. But we cannot prepare for something concocted in a petri dish in a Level 4 lab.
Fight for the future: Rather ironic that he ends his book with worries about India. India the 2nd most populous country in the world with 1.3B people, has just over 100,000 cases of Covid, with only 43% fully vaccinated. USA on the other hand, has 330M people with 13M cases of Covid. A new record for cases in a single country. With 62% vaccination rates.
So while Sanjay wrote a decent book, a lot of critical information was left out. He spun his side of the story, confirmation biased as he was with the belief that mRNA vaccinations will save the world rather than informing the public as to how this thing operates and that they should change their lifestyles. To save themselves. From a manmade problem.
Dr. Gupta's book was supposed to be about what we learned about the pandemic. How we can prepare for the next pandemic. And how we can potentially prevent the next pandemic.
What we learned.
POSTMORTEM Chapter starts with the deaths of 2 outlier victims of Covid-19. A 22 year old, a 41 year old and a long haul covid victim that was 53 years old.
No mention that the people he was highlighting were outliers.
The 22 year old was one of 1,483 such individuals aged 18-29, who perished from Covid-19 in 2020. Yet 1,765 individuals aged 18-29 also died from pneumonia that year. Deaths from all causes for that demographic (18-29) were 63,403 in 2020.
The biggest and hardest hit demographic in 2020, was the 85 and older age group. Covid was attributed with 122,820 deaths for that age group in 2020. No mention that a good number of those people died from dehydration, rather than Covid itself.
So why highlight the outlier? Over 3.3 million Americans died from something in 2020. Only 385,430 from Covid. Why highlight a 22 year old that represented such a number in such a small demographic?
The facts and the statistics are in front of everyone to read for themselves. Covid, like any other disease, can target the young, the middle aged and the old. Much like the #1 source of death, heart disease, which took out 659,000 Americans in 2019. Or cancer, which was responsible for 599,000 mortalities in 2019.
What is different about this one, is how and who it attacks. Which Dr. Gupta does little justice to.
Sanjay briefly touches on the ill preparedness of the federal government in this chapter. See Michael Lewis's book "The Premonition" for a better explanation on how messed up the USA's government is in regards to starting things like pandemic planning and then shelving them with each new administration's tenure.
There is finally mention however, throughout the book, that it is a disease of the more affluent nations. That obesity, diabetes, kidney disease and cardiovascular disorders are the co-morbidities often associated with a negative outcome were the person with these disorders contract Covid-19.
What Sanjay doesn't do in his book, is dive deeper into the science. Interestingly, he cites using pubmed.gov. Which is awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the very good articles can only be viewed by subscribing or paying for them. There are other sites, and the most interesting, but not highly publicized articles are luckily free, as their authors are not seeking monetary compensation during these trying times.
The interesting part, is that Sanjay, does not talk about how the virus infects us. Even though he says in his book that it is important that scientific leaders educate the public.
Why it is targeting obese and hypertensive individuals?
The ACE-2 receptor (as he mentions in Chapter 3, Big and Sticky section) is how the virus gets in. But he stops right there. Full stop. No mention of what the ACE-2 Receptor is for. Or why it exists.
Here's why.
The Ace-2 receptor is part of a feedback loop system called the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone-System (RAAS). If your kidneys are NOT getting enough blood flowing through them (due to either hemorrhage or dehydration), your blood pressure will drop. The RAAS system is activated to ensure that blood pressure stays normal. Renin is secreted by the kidneys and marries with Angiotensinogen from the liver to form Angiotensin I. ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme) coming from our lungs, converts Angiotensin I into Angiotensin II, which is a vasodilator. Angiotensin II locks into AT1R receptors in your epithelial cells to vasoconstrict blood vessels. Raising Blood Pressure. This is called the HARMFUL phase of RAAS, as a number of BAD things happen as payment for your body trying to regulate blood pressure by having to squeeze its own blood vessels. One of those BAD things, is that the ACE2 receptor, sits there, bound to the membrane of whatever cell it happens to be expressed upon. In this state, the ACE2 receptor is said to be membrane bound or mACE2.
So what does this have to do with ACE2 and Covid?
A team of epidemiologists suggested the tie in with hydration and Covid in November of 2020. Not a single government entity has cited this research.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
When you close off that hemorrhage and rehydrate with an IV, or when you reestablish your hydration levels (BY DRINKING WATER), RAAS starts its PROTECTIVE phase. Adam17, a sheddase family enzyme, cleaves membrane bound mACE2 receptors making them soluble. The soluble ACE2 (sACE2) then binds with Angiotensin II to form Angiotensin I-7 which binds to MaS Receptors and vasodilate the blood vessels that were vasoconstricted by Angiotensin II.
But that's not all.
The cleaved mACE2 receptors are no longer susceptible to Covid-19 infection. COV2 can only infect membrane bound ACE2 receptors (mACE2). Once cleaved, the actual receptor part (soluble ACE2 or sACE2) is not only attracted to Angiotensin II (to form Angiotensin I-7), but if there are COV2 viruses in the vicinity, they potentially latch on to the Spike S protein on the COV2 virus, making that binding site inert.
Don't believe me. Read this one for yourself.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
What does this mean?
It means that people that have high blood pressure problems, people that are chronically dehydrated (as most obese people are), have their membrane bound mACE2 receptors expressed like sitting ducks for Covid-19 to get in and start a full blow infection.
According to National Academy of Sciences, you should be drinking up to 2.7L of water a day (if you are a woman) and 3.7L of water a day if you are a man. Including food. That is a recommendation from 2004. Never mind diuretics like coffee and tea and caffeinated drinks. Never mind diuretic medicines, or stress. Which further dehydrates. Which means if you don't drink enough water, you are more susceptible to Covid-19.
Type in "National Academy of Sciences Hydration Levels" to get the report. The link was insanely long to post here.
Dr. Gupta does mention that one of his colleagues believes with 85% certainty that the virus was created in the Wuhan laboratory. Very likely true, simply because mankind has yet to discover the animal that was responsible for the zoonotic transmission to humans.
I could go on and on about the things that Sanjay left out. He did a good job about presenting "risk" however, I will give him that. Well done.
Sanjay states that we should not shame the antivaxxers. "Share, don't shame." Yet how does that dovetail into Sanjay recommending that his readers search out long term health care facilities that mandate vaccinations.
Last I checked, vaccinations do not stop infections. They do not stop transmission. They do not stop one from dying from Covid-19. So why the push to ostracize those that need more data before getting the jab?
How to prepare for the next pandemic?
Plan ahead. Good luck with that one. Maybe for the rest of the world. USA governments redo all their internal plans with every new administration. See Michael Lewis's "The Premonition" for details. Plus the next pandemic will likely come from an avian industrial farm. See Dr. Michael Greger's "How to survive a pandemic."
Rethink and Rewire. While I will admit that Sanjay did a good job talking about relative vs absolute risk, he did not take into account the fact that governments have lied and continue to lie to their people. To suddenly come out with "trust us" as a slogan, just doesn't work when people have been fed lies too numerous to mention. 75 years to disclose JFK papers but he was assassinated by a lone gunman? Building 7 suddenly falling for no reason whatsoever at 5pm? Iraq full of weapons of mass destruction? We don't need gold tied to the US dollar? 32 Trillion dollars really isn't a problem? 1 Trillion dollars in defense budget every year is a good thing? Or how about the latest head scracter. Phizer wants to take 70 years to release all of its safety data to the public. Good luck with that.
Optimal Health. This is a tough one. But not really. This disease is disease of the affluent. Just under half of the world's cases are centered in the land of the free and the home of the twinkie. Of the worlds 29M cases, 13M of them are in the USA. This disease targets the blood pressure system. The HARMFUL phase of the RAAS system trying to continuously raise blood pressure, due to dehydration. If you are obese, you have blood pressure problems. You are a Covid-19 target. Plain and simple. Please do follow Sanjay's advice. But what he missed out, is that you will have a tougher time doing that on a meat based diet. Plant based, staying away from refined plant based foods and fried foods will get you to nirvana. And of course, hydrate optimally.
Organize family. This part was geared for USA residents. With a bit of stuff for all world inhabitants. The part that didn't make sense was the fact he actually states we need to "Learn to live with Germs." If his friends Metzl and Redfield are vindicated in their theories that this virus was as a result of a lab leak (through a gain of function experiment), then there is no WAY to predict what the next lab leak will wreak upon humanity. We can learn to live with the natural ones, yes. Because they evolve at the same relative rates as humanity has (they don't want to kill their hosts, only proliferate), with the occasional zoonotic crossover. But we cannot prepare for something concocted in a petri dish in a Level 4 lab.
Fight for the future: Rather ironic that he ends his book with worries about India. India the 2nd most populous country in the world with 1.3B people, has just over 100,000 cases of Covid, with only 43% fully vaccinated. USA on the other hand, has 330M people with 13M cases of Covid. A new record for cases in a single country. With 62% vaccination rates.
So while Sanjay wrote a decent book, a lot of critical information was left out. He spun his side of the story, confirmation biased as he was with the belief that mRNA vaccinations will save the world rather than informing the public as to how this thing operates and that they should change their lifestyles. To save themselves. From a manmade problem.
Read
June 24, 2022El Covid-19 cambió radicalmente millones de vidas humanas. Enfermedades, confinamiento y muerte son sólo parte de las diversas consecuencias que ha causado el coronavirus en el mundo y en cada una de las personas que lo habitan. Guerra mundial C es el libro que nos ayuda a comprender un poco más los factores que propiciaron uno de los eventos de la historia de la salud contemporánea más radicales y peligrosos que ha vivido la humanidad.
Sanjay Gupta, neurocirujano y asesor médico de CNN, nos entrega información y datos relevantes para comprender la diversidad de elementos involucrados en la pandemia del coronavirus, tales como las negligencias y demoras en realizar las primeras diligencias para enfrentar el virus, los conceptos y procesos básicos en torno a la confección de vacunas, las estrategias comunicacionales que impactaron en la toma de conciencia del peligro de la enfermedad, entre otros.
Guerra mundial C es un libro de divulgación científica, por lo tanto su ritmo es ligero y cercano a los y las lectores, más no sacrifica la seriedad en torno al manejo de la información requerida para este tipo de libros. Un punto a favor en este aspecto es la abundancia de citas y referencias a pie de página que lleva a links de entrevistas, libros, reportes, informes médicos, estadísticas, entre otros, lo que ayuda a establecer parámetros fiables en cuanto a la investigación que se tiene en manos.
Un libro imprescindible para introducirse en temas relevantes para nuestra época.
Sanjay Gupta, neurocirujano y asesor médico de CNN, nos entrega información y datos relevantes para comprender la diversidad de elementos involucrados en la pandemia del coronavirus, tales como las negligencias y demoras en realizar las primeras diligencias para enfrentar el virus, los conceptos y procesos básicos en torno a la confección de vacunas, las estrategias comunicacionales que impactaron en la toma de conciencia del peligro de la enfermedad, entre otros.
Guerra mundial C es un libro de divulgación científica, por lo tanto su ritmo es ligero y cercano a los y las lectores, más no sacrifica la seriedad en torno al manejo de la información requerida para este tipo de libros. Un punto a favor en este aspecto es la abundancia de citas y referencias a pie de página que lleva a links de entrevistas, libros, reportes, informes médicos, estadísticas, entre otros, lo que ayuda a establecer parámetros fiables en cuanto a la investigación que se tiene en manos.
Un libro imprescindible para introducirse en temas relevantes para nuestra época.
October 21, 2021
Gupta has mastered the conversational delivery of complex medical information, and that kept me reading...Sometimes the chemistry went over my head, but I kept plodding along...
We shouldn't have been surprised. We should NOT have been flat-footed. We should have been the most-prepared country in the world. But...
Gupta gives a history of vaccinations in a chapter called, "Cows". If you remember your biology, you know the connection.
Then he gets into his thesis...PROOF...how to prepare for the next pandemic...or truly any emergency.
P-plan ahead...have supplies, have a plan. In this section he shows how to really examine our online sources to make sure we are reading and sharing correct information...he shows us what supplies we should just have on hand at all times, the ways we should plan our environment -- totally upstream thinking.
R-rethink, rewire risk. Here he talks about how to realistically assess and respond to risks, given who we all are and what we do...We may need to live with more risk, but how do we approach it smartly? We've heard a lot of deniers talk about that .5% risk of dying...so why not ignore it? Others see that risk and go overboard on the other end of the risk spectrum. We will need to get comfortable having risk in our lives.
O-optimize health...lose weight, eat well, exercise. We can do a lot to lower some of our personal risks, and get ourselves healthier in the process.
O-organize your family. Don't stop going to those medical check-ups. Make sure you have insurance. Save for emergencies. Travel smartly...Think about the elderly and their care. We saw Covid burn thru nursing homes. We must prevent anything like that again. Be OK with shifting your friend-circles.And my favorite...learn to live with germs. Ick!
F-fight for our futures...Put all this together and make sure you are working for good in the post-WWC world
We shouldn't have been surprised. We should NOT have been flat-footed. We should have been the most-prepared country in the world. But...
Gupta gives a history of vaccinations in a chapter called, "Cows". If you remember your biology, you know the connection.
Then he gets into his thesis...PROOF...how to prepare for the next pandemic...or truly any emergency.
P-plan ahead...have supplies, have a plan. In this section he shows how to really examine our online sources to make sure we are reading and sharing correct information...he shows us what supplies we should just have on hand at all times, the ways we should plan our environment -- totally upstream thinking.
R-rethink, rewire risk. Here he talks about how to realistically assess and respond to risks, given who we all are and what we do...We may need to live with more risk, but how do we approach it smartly? We've heard a lot of deniers talk about that .5% risk of dying...so why not ignore it? Others see that risk and go overboard on the other end of the risk spectrum. We will need to get comfortable having risk in our lives.
O-optimize health...lose weight, eat well, exercise. We can do a lot to lower some of our personal risks, and get ourselves healthier in the process.
O-organize your family. Don't stop going to those medical check-ups. Make sure you have insurance. Save for emergencies. Travel smartly...Think about the elderly and their care. We saw Covid burn thru nursing homes. We must prevent anything like that again. Be OK with shifting your friend-circles.And my favorite...learn to live with germs. Ick!
F-fight for our futures...Put all this together and make sure you are working for good in the post-WWC world
December 11, 2021
Another excellent book by Sanjay Gupta, who I hadn't heard of before reading his book Keep Sharp (also highly recommended).
In this case, I was relieved to receive Covid information, stripped of the political bantering. It helped to bring the subject down to a manageable level. There's a lot of good information about covid viruses in general, COVID-19 specifically, and other communicable diseases. He also includes chapters on MYTHS surrounding Covid, how to talk to those we love about Covid, and how to move forward in a post-pandemic world. Overall, a very good read.
As with his previous book that I've read, there is a lot of information here, and it can sometimes feel overwhelming. I'd recommend reading it SLOWLY and allowing the data to settle in. This isn't one you want to try and process in 24 hours.
In this case, I was relieved to receive Covid information, stripped of the political bantering. It helped to bring the subject down to a manageable level. There's a lot of good information about covid viruses in general, COVID-19 specifically, and other communicable diseases. He also includes chapters on MYTHS surrounding Covid, how to talk to those we love about Covid, and how to move forward in a post-pandemic world. Overall, a very good read.
As with his previous book that I've read, there is a lot of information here, and it can sometimes feel overwhelming. I'd recommend reading it SLOWLY and allowing the data to settle in. This isn't one you want to try and process in 24 hours.
January 15, 2022
I cannot recommend this book enough. I KNOW, I KNOW! The last thing in the world ANYONE wants to talk about is "the virus that cannot be named" 🤣, but Dr. Sanjay Gupta is my all-time favorite doctor/medical correspondent. He's level headed, he tells it like it is without political leanings. As a history major, I don't know lots of things science-y and medical-ish, but Sanjay explains COVID-19 in detail, explores origins, and provides tips to figure out how to live in this new environment without being condescending, pretentious, or speaking in medical jargon only doctors and nurses understand.
November 24, 2021
I loved this book
Everyone should become better informed about our path forward in this era of pandemics. His intelligence, wisdom and compassion all come through as he walks us through the specifics of how we got here and how to protect ourselves moving forward. Let’s pay better attention to preventing another biological disaster. Be informed, demand more from our leaders and also congratulate yourself on all that you endured, learned and lost from Covid.
Everyone should become better informed about our path forward in this era of pandemics. His intelligence, wisdom and compassion all come through as he walks us through the specifics of how we got here and how to protect ourselves moving forward. Let’s pay better attention to preventing another biological disaster. Be informed, demand more from our leaders and also congratulate yourself on all that you endured, learned and lost from Covid.
January 2, 2022
This excellent book is a must read for those who wish to know about the COVID 19 virus. Sanjay Gupta presents his well written and well researched information in an easily accessed style.
August 4, 2022
This is an accessible read to anyone interested in more information on Covid. Not a pleasant subject, but I do feel more informed on how this disease works, how it is different from other viruses, and how pandemics happen. Gupta is a voice of reason, offering facts on this disease and the failure of messaging based on limited information, which led to confusion among the general population. It is a good listen and I feel better informed in making decisions concerning Covid protocols and staying healthy.
September 8, 2021
Informative, insightful, and just plain needed! Dr. Gupta teaches in World War C the differences between misinformation and disinformation, and I'm so thankful for this well thought out and informative read to clear things up. I especially enjoyed the sections on myth busting around Covid-19 and how to keep ourselves healthy and prepared for further outbreaks in the future. Told with an honest and humble approach based on science, but explained in a way that anyone can understand. This should be required reading for everyone! Thank you to NetGalley for the digital ARC.
January 1, 2022
Great book, well written, easy to understand and it explains/clarifies so many of the questions/information I've heard thrown around by people who are not in the medical or science fields. Highly recommend.
September 6, 2021
I received this book free from Netgalley for an honest review.
I found this book very interesting and more on the academic side of things than I normally read. It took me awhile to read it because of that but I do think I learned from this book. Sanjay has been through his fair share of pandemics and gave good insight at each stage of the pandemics and also how to stay safe during one and how to hopefully prevent another. I liked that it was evidence based facts so maybe some nah sayers should pick this book up and give it a read.
I did enjoy this book and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for more answers regarding this pandemic.
I found this book very interesting and more on the academic side of things than I normally read. It took me awhile to read it because of that but I do think I learned from this book. Sanjay has been through his fair share of pandemics and gave good insight at each stage of the pandemics and also how to stay safe during one and how to hopefully prevent another. I liked that it was evidence based facts so maybe some nah sayers should pick this book up and give it a read.
I did enjoy this book and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for more answers regarding this pandemic.
January 4, 2022
This book has the misfortune to discuss an ongoing pandemic, so it became almost instantly out of date the moment it was published. Dr. Gupta makes several references to his hope for the future without knowing (at the time of his writing) that Delta and Omicron were yet to make their appearance. He covers a pretty broad gamut of related topics under the Covid umbrella: the history of viruses in general, the history of vaccines, how the current covid vaccine works, health complications associated with greater covid risk, risk assessment, the international covid response, the potential origins of covid, and the American political response to covid. The last chapter was effectively a list of recommendations for healthy living that included tips for diet and exercise and several references to another of his published works and his podcast. Sometimes I read segments that seemed very much like Dr. Gupta was tooting his own horn for his, admittedly, many impressive accomplishments. But on the whole, this was an informative and interesting book.
September 12, 2021
I enjoyed this book and rate it as 4.5 stars. I loved the conversational style of Dr. Gupta’s writing. I also enjoyed reading about his relevant personal experiences as a medical reporter. He explains the science well and in clear language. However the book has some flaws. Too much attention was paid to the lab-leak hypothesis. I also found the section on the influence of the microbiome to be too speculative. The information on food and diet was too broad and less relevant to COVID, aise from the increased risk of complications in people with obesity. At times I also felt that Gupta was too self-promoting. However, these don’t outweigh the positives of the book. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the advance reader copy.
February 4, 2023
Calm, balanced, and informed. Highly recommend.
February 12, 2022
Published October 2021 and already outdated COVID info!
January 22, 2025
COVID Myths 🆚 Facts
MYTH: The COVID vaccines were not rigorously tested, which is why they have only emergency authorization approval and not full Food and Drug Administration approval. (Update: Pfizer’s vaccine received full FDA approval on August 19)
FACT: “Vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps, but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster.”—Johns Hopkins
MYTH: The technology used to create the COVID vaccines is too new to be safe.
FACT: The technology used, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, is not new. Research on it actually began in the early 1990s, and two diseases that are very close to COVID—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)—helped bring the mRNA vaccine development to present day use.—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Understanding mRNA COVID-19
MYTH: Breakthrough cases prove that even if I get the vaccine, I might still get COVID. So why bother?
FACT: As of August 9, the CDC said there had been 8,054 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus—out of more than 166 million fully vaccinated Americans. That’s roughly .005 percent. Additionally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky has said that 99.5 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in the unvaccinated.—Politifact, Fact Checking Joe Biden’s Figure on Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths
MYTH: The COVID vaccines can affect a woman’s fertility.
FACT: This rumor started after a report claimed inaccurately, yet circulated on social media, that the SPIKE protein on this coronavirus was the same as another protein called syncytin-1 that is involved in the growth and attachment of the placenta during pregnancy. It was quickly debunked as false by the scientific community.—STAT News, Shattering the Infertility Myth
MYTH: I already had COVID, therefore I don’t need the vaccine. I’m immune.
FACT: “After people recover from infection with a virus, the immune system retains a memory of it,” the National Institutes of Health explains. While that’s good for the immune system, it also means that even after you recover from COVID, it’s still inside your body and can resurface. Studies have been unclear how long immunity lasts after having COVID—most experts believe anywhere from 90 days to six months, though it could be longer.—National Institutes of Health
MYTH: Children do not need to be vaccinated because they do not become sick from COVID-19.
FACT: “Hundreds of children in Indonesia have died from the coronavirus in recent weeks, many of them under age 5.” A five-year old boy in the state of Georgia died of coronavirus in July.—The New York Times , and CNN
MYTH: I’m vaccinated. So I can drop all my COVID precautions, right?
FACT: Studies have shown that a person infected with the Delta variant of COVID has roughly 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than a person infected with the original strain.—CDC,
MYTH: Getting the COVID vaccine actually gives you COVID.
FACT: It is not medically possible. The vaccine does not contain the virus.—Johns Hopkins Medicine
MYTH: A microchip, with the backing of Bill Gates, is being implanted with the vaccine.
FACT: This one started when Microsoft cofounder Gates said in an interview: “We will have some digital certificates” that could ultimately show who’s been tested and who’s been vaccinated. (Alas, he never mentioned microchips.)—BBC, Coronavirus: Bill Gates Microchip Conspiracy Theory
MYTH: The COVID vaccines were not rigorously tested, which is why they have only emergency authorization approval and not full Food and Drug Administration approval. (Update: Pfizer’s vaccine received full FDA approval on August 19)
FACT: “Vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps, but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster.”—Johns Hopkins
MYTH: The technology used to create the COVID vaccines is too new to be safe.
FACT: The technology used, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, is not new. Research on it actually began in the early 1990s, and two diseases that are very close to COVID—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)—helped bring the mRNA vaccine development to present day use.—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Understanding mRNA COVID-19
MYTH: Breakthrough cases prove that even if I get the vaccine, I might still get COVID. So why bother?
FACT: As of August 9, the CDC said there had been 8,054 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus—out of more than 166 million fully vaccinated Americans. That’s roughly .005 percent. Additionally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky has said that 99.5 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in the unvaccinated.—Politifact, Fact Checking Joe Biden’s Figure on Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths
MYTH: The COVID vaccines can affect a woman’s fertility.
FACT: This rumor started after a report claimed inaccurately, yet circulated on social media, that the SPIKE protein on this coronavirus was the same as another protein called syncytin-1 that is involved in the growth and attachment of the placenta during pregnancy. It was quickly debunked as false by the scientific community.—STAT News, Shattering the Infertility Myth
MYTH: I already had COVID, therefore I don’t need the vaccine. I’m immune.
FACT: “After people recover from infection with a virus, the immune system retains a memory of it,” the National Institutes of Health explains. While that’s good for the immune system, it also means that even after you recover from COVID, it’s still inside your body and can resurface. Studies have been unclear how long immunity lasts after having COVID—most experts believe anywhere from 90 days to six months, though it could be longer.—National Institutes of Health
MYTH: Children do not need to be vaccinated because they do not become sick from COVID-19.
FACT: “Hundreds of children in Indonesia have died from the coronavirus in recent weeks, many of them under age 5.” A five-year old boy in the state of Georgia died of coronavirus in July.—The New York Times , and CNN
MYTH: I’m vaccinated. So I can drop all my COVID precautions, right?
FACT: Studies have shown that a person infected with the Delta variant of COVID has roughly 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than a person infected with the original strain.—CDC,
MYTH: Getting the COVID vaccine actually gives you COVID.
FACT: It is not medically possible. The vaccine does not contain the virus.—Johns Hopkins Medicine
MYTH: A microchip, with the backing of Bill Gates, is being implanted with the vaccine.
FACT: This one started when Microsoft cofounder Gates said in an interview: “We will have some digital certificates” that could ultimately show who’s been tested and who’s been vaccinated. (Alas, he never mentioned microchips.)—BBC, Coronavirus: Bill Gates Microchip Conspiracy Theory
February 10, 2022
There were so many interesting things in this book that it's rather a longer than usual review, with many tidbits.
Sanjay Gupta is a medical correspondent for CNN and spent so much of the last 2 years reporting on the pandemic. However, this book isn’t only about COVID-19. It has chapters that explain the physiology of the body’s response to infection. He talks about the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as SARS and MERS and then considers the future of pandemics. It is a fascinating book. Here are some of the many tidbits I picked up:
• There was evidence of the pandemic in the summer of 2019: When looking back, satellite images showed increasingly filled hospital parking lots (in China) that didn’t resemble the same lots in previous years. Online searches of keywords associated with infectious diseases was significantly increased on China’s main search engine.
• Wonderful understatements from history:
o Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow—“Just a little stroll gone bad”
o Pompeii—“a bit of a dust storm”
o Hiroshima—“a bad summer heat wave”
o And
o Wuhan—“just a bad flu season”
• Covid is a virus wrapped in a fatty envelope, which is dissolved/destroyed by soap, which is why washing was so NB
• Some Statistics:
o The USA is 4% of the world population but suffered more than 25% of the infections by summer 2020.
o In a feat of “statistics can mean anything you want them to mean” the fact that 94% of covid-19 deaths in US had underlying medical conditions was somehow changed in the media to: only 6% of deaths were related to covid. This is the same as saying that 90% of those who died on 9/11 died of heart disease, diabetes, or stroke.
o You are 3 times more likely to be hit by lightening than die from a covid vaccine
o Nearly 2/3 of anti-vaccination content on Facebook & Twitter between Feb 1 & March 16 2021 was attributed to just 12 influencers.
o Twice as many children drown in a typical year as have died in a year from covid and 5 times as many die in vehicle accidents.
• 1 in 4 mammals on the planet is a bat! And 50% of mammals are rodents. This volume is why most of the infectious diseases that come from animals come from these two types of animals.
• The current population of everywhere lack personal memory of past diseases and this makes people complacent, i.e., no first-hand experience with polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, measles etc. Which has led to the rise of anti-vaxxers since they don’t understand the danger of these diseases.
• No previous vaccine has been developed in less than 4 years. Wow, were the researchers great!
• Levels of inflammatory markers in patients with covid suggest that gut microbiome is involved in determining the magnitude of the infection
And to end with, one of his jokes: “Doctors often like to joke that internal medicine docs know everything—but do nothing. Surgeons know nothing—but do everything. And pathologists, well, they know everything and they do everything—but a day too late.
It was very interesting to read and a real education related to infectious diseases.
Sanjay Gupta is a medical correspondent for CNN and spent so much of the last 2 years reporting on the pandemic. However, this book isn’t only about COVID-19. It has chapters that explain the physiology of the body’s response to infection. He talks about the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as SARS and MERS and then considers the future of pandemics. It is a fascinating book. Here are some of the many tidbits I picked up:
• There was evidence of the pandemic in the summer of 2019: When looking back, satellite images showed increasingly filled hospital parking lots (in China) that didn’t resemble the same lots in previous years. Online searches of keywords associated with infectious diseases was significantly increased on China’s main search engine.
• Wonderful understatements from history:
o Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow—“Just a little stroll gone bad”
o Pompeii—“a bit of a dust storm”
o Hiroshima—“a bad summer heat wave”
o And
o Wuhan—“just a bad flu season”
• Covid is a virus wrapped in a fatty envelope, which is dissolved/destroyed by soap, which is why washing was so NB
• Some Statistics:
o The USA is 4% of the world population but suffered more than 25% of the infections by summer 2020.
o In a feat of “statistics can mean anything you want them to mean” the fact that 94% of covid-19 deaths in US had underlying medical conditions was somehow changed in the media to: only 6% of deaths were related to covid. This is the same as saying that 90% of those who died on 9/11 died of heart disease, diabetes, or stroke.
o You are 3 times more likely to be hit by lightening than die from a covid vaccine
o Nearly 2/3 of anti-vaccination content on Facebook & Twitter between Feb 1 & March 16 2021 was attributed to just 12 influencers.
o Twice as many children drown in a typical year as have died in a year from covid and 5 times as many die in vehicle accidents.
• 1 in 4 mammals on the planet is a bat! And 50% of mammals are rodents. This volume is why most of the infectious diseases that come from animals come from these two types of animals.
• The current population of everywhere lack personal memory of past diseases and this makes people complacent, i.e., no first-hand experience with polio, whooping cough, diphtheria, mumps, measles etc. Which has led to the rise of anti-vaxxers since they don’t understand the danger of these diseases.
• No previous vaccine has been developed in less than 4 years. Wow, were the researchers great!
• Levels of inflammatory markers in patients with covid suggest that gut microbiome is involved in determining the magnitude of the infection
And to end with, one of his jokes: “Doctors often like to joke that internal medicine docs know everything—but do nothing. Surgeons know nothing—but do everything. And pathologists, well, they know everything and they do everything—but a day too late.
It was very interesting to read and a real education related to infectious diseases.
February 20, 2022
As COVID-19 cases increase for the first time where I am, I feel it’s important to read about the experiences of others to navigate a way through this pandemic. Sure, I’ve kept up with the news across Australia and internationally but it’s also useful in my opinion to revisit where we started from. World War C offers insight into America’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, from the first cases to vaccinations and a reduction of cases. Notably – and definitely not the author’s fault – the narrative stops before global Delta outbreaks and the emergence of the Omicron variant. Consider this volume 1 of the pandemic chronicles.
Perhaps because of my own situation, I found the introductory chapter on COVID-19 rather overdramatic. It highlights the numerous awful things that have happened and what it was like confronting a pathogen we didn’t know what to do with. It’s very scary and given the multiple oral and intravenous COVID-19 treatments now available, it’s a chapter largely forgotten (thank goodness). I also want to nitpickingly point out that ribavirin is a very real medication, not fictional as mentioned. (But no, it most definitely does not cure COVID-19). But as the book progressed through the period of COVID-19 from late 2019/early 2020 to early 2021, it’s a testament to how much has happened and been achieved. I felt these sections were toned down a bit, or perhaps I was more comfortable about science progressing towards giving clinicians options to treat COVID-19.
The COVID-19 journey makes up about half the book with the remainder devoted to becoming P.R.O.O.F. I found these chapters highly relevant, for example, how to calculate risk when going out when COVID-19 is prevalent in the community. Some of the information on diet and exercise is common sense, but in these muddled times it helps to be reminded that healthy food will make you feel better long term. The section also covers the author’s experiences with other pandemics and epidemics such as Ebola (possibly the most scary disease ever) and H1N1 influenza.
The chapters are easy to read and contain references to both news articles as well as scholarly articles. Complex concepts, such as how mRNA vaccines work and how viruses spread are delivered in easy to understand bitesize chunks. This is a sound summary of the pandemic so far, combining how to minimise risk for yourself and others.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
Perhaps because of my own situation, I found the introductory chapter on COVID-19 rather overdramatic. It highlights the numerous awful things that have happened and what it was like confronting a pathogen we didn’t know what to do with. It’s very scary and given the multiple oral and intravenous COVID-19 treatments now available, it’s a chapter largely forgotten (thank goodness). I also want to nitpickingly point out that ribavirin is a very real medication, not fictional as mentioned. (But no, it most definitely does not cure COVID-19). But as the book progressed through the period of COVID-19 from late 2019/early 2020 to early 2021, it’s a testament to how much has happened and been achieved. I felt these sections were toned down a bit, or perhaps I was more comfortable about science progressing towards giving clinicians options to treat COVID-19.
The COVID-19 journey makes up about half the book with the remainder devoted to becoming P.R.O.O.F. I found these chapters highly relevant, for example, how to calculate risk when going out when COVID-19 is prevalent in the community. Some of the information on diet and exercise is common sense, but in these muddled times it helps to be reminded that healthy food will make you feel better long term. The section also covers the author’s experiences with other pandemics and epidemics such as Ebola (possibly the most scary disease ever) and H1N1 influenza.
The chapters are easy to read and contain references to both news articles as well as scholarly articles. Complex concepts, such as how mRNA vaccines work and how viruses spread are delivered in easy to understand bitesize chunks. This is a sound summary of the pandemic so far, combining how to minimise risk for yourself and others.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
December 10, 2021
I’ve been (understandably) reading a lot about the COVID-19 Pandemic lately but this is the most thorough book I’ve read to date. Unfortunately the situation is always changing so while this was made this year, it’s already not fully up to date. That’s understandable though. I’m sure he will eventually do an updated version. In the mean time, it’s up to date enough to read if you are confused and want to know more.
The author Sanjay Gupta, MD is the CNN Chief Medical Correspondent. As such, the book is written from an American point of view. I still enjoyed it as a Canadian although I’d love to read a book about the pandemic written by a Canadian.
Two Parts
The book is broken into two parts. Part One has four chapters and is about the history of the pandemic and where it might have come from. If you are unclear about it’s history or you are reading this many years after I wrote this and you weren’t apart of the pandemic, this part will be helpful.
Part Two is about becoming Pandemic P.R.O.O.F. and being prepared for a future pandemic. P.R.O.O.F. stands for:
P – Plan Ahead
R – Rethink and Rewire Risk in Your Brain
O – Optimize Health
O – Organize Family
F – Fight for the Future of Us
This section includes some information similar to his other book: Keep Sharp. This part is about preparing your home, yourself and your family for future pandemics or other emergencies.
Examples
For example the Risk section goes over the traps that people often fall into when assessing their risk level. This would be things such as believing it’s not going to happen to YOU, believing you’re okay because you’re in control, not worrying because no one knows anyway, using examples such as all these people didn’t follow the rules and they are okay etc. The Health section goes over Move, Sleep and Chill which is a fun way of saying get exercise, good sleep and destress. The health section is a lot more than that, but that’s the basics.
I thought the Organize section was important. Things such as: choosing health care plans, rebuild emergency funds, keep up with checkups and rethink long-term care facilities.
Even if you aren’t sure you agree with certain procedures like vaccines, masking or gathering rules, you will find this book informative.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The author Sanjay Gupta, MD is the CNN Chief Medical Correspondent. As such, the book is written from an American point of view. I still enjoyed it as a Canadian although I’d love to read a book about the pandemic written by a Canadian.
Two Parts
The book is broken into two parts. Part One has four chapters and is about the history of the pandemic and where it might have come from. If you are unclear about it’s history or you are reading this many years after I wrote this and you weren’t apart of the pandemic, this part will be helpful.
Part Two is about becoming Pandemic P.R.O.O.F. and being prepared for a future pandemic. P.R.O.O.F. stands for:
P – Plan Ahead
R – Rethink and Rewire Risk in Your Brain
O – Optimize Health
O – Organize Family
F – Fight for the Future of Us
This section includes some information similar to his other book: Keep Sharp. This part is about preparing your home, yourself and your family for future pandemics or other emergencies.
Examples
For example the Risk section goes over the traps that people often fall into when assessing their risk level. This would be things such as believing it’s not going to happen to YOU, believing you’re okay because you’re in control, not worrying because no one knows anyway, using examples such as all these people didn’t follow the rules and they are okay etc. The Health section goes over Move, Sleep and Chill which is a fun way of saying get exercise, good sleep and destress. The health section is a lot more than that, but that’s the basics.
I thought the Organize section was important. Things such as: choosing health care plans, rebuild emergency funds, keep up with checkups and rethink long-term care facilities.
Even if you aren’t sure you agree with certain procedures like vaccines, masking or gathering rules, you will find this book informative.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
March 14, 2022
Una estrella y gracias. Me creo totalmente que este hombre trabaja para la CNN, libro lleno de demagogia y venta de puro miedo. Exageración tras exageración en busca del pánico popular y fomentando claro, medidas de seguridad, que no dejan de ser de recortes de libertad y derechos encubiertos. La estrella por el capítulo de la posible fuga del virus, que con lo que dice poco queda para la duda. Increíble que teniendo ese conocimiento se centre más en soluciones del tipo de control poblacional y no en evitar que ciertos laboratorios se dediquen a la "ganancia de función" en los virus. Reiteradamente hablando de pandemias inevitables, de lo fácil que es que ocurran, de lo poco preparados que estamos para frenarlas... Bien la última gran pandemia fue la de la gripe de 1918 (el covid comparado con esa es irrisorio), de eso hace 100 años... Y la que hemos tenido ha sido porque ha escapado de un laboratorio! Tras 100 años! Creada por nosotros! Y la solución es rastrear a la gente de a pié?? Claro, NO la causante y que sale impune de ello? NO toda la gente que se ha echo rica (más rica perdón) a causa de esta pandemia? Que es la MISMA que avisaban que una pandemia se venía? Dónde está el sentido común? Por-fa-vor. Este libro es un insulto a la inteligencia. Sanjay QUIZÁ no sea mal tipo, en verdad el final del libro sobre la responsabilidad personal de cuidarse, el sueño, la dieta, el ejercicio me parece un gran consejo... no sé si será para tapar toda la mierda que ha escrito detrás o porque tiene el cerebro tan lavado que se cree tales incongruencias. En fin, capítulo sobre fuga de laboratorio, historia de las vacunas y el final de cuidarse uno mismo y tema de la microbiota también muy importante y el resto para encender la estufa. Un saludo.
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