Barbara Adde’s Reviews > The Premonition: A Pandemic Story > Status Update

Before COVID-19 stopped spreading, 2/3 of Californians would need to become infected.

The simple truth that the formula captured: the more transmissible the disease, the more people needed to be infected before the herd was theoretically safe. Measles’ reproductive rate of 28, on the high end, implies that 95% of the population needs to be immune to measles before measles stops spreading. That’s why we have as our goal to vaccinate 95% of the population against measles.

Everyone has a story they tell themselves about themselves. Even if they don’t explicitly acknowledge it, their minds are at work retelling or editing or updating a narrative that explains or excuses why they have spent their time on earth as they have.

Then she found a clinic in San Ysidro that was willing to accept the seriously ill. Then Jewish Family Service stepped in to help - and she was struck by how private American forces of mercy were straining to offset America’s public agents of cruelty.

Progress often began when someone saw something they hadn’t expected to see and said, “Huh, that’s weird.”