Know your pandemic

Book review of Covid-19: Separating Fact from Fiction

An alternative title for this book could have been “What you didn’t know about viruses, pandemics, and vaccines, and wanted to ask”.  In simple language, assuming no previous knowledge, the book does a breezy run through these broad topics.

It gives a sense of how viruses work, the current state of the art with reference to Covid-19, the art and science of vaccine-creation, drug-testing, and immunisation doctrines, the treatment of unknown diseases, how epidemiologists study disease and their influence on public policy. The end notes add rigour by listing key studies across these domains. As the author Anirban Mahapatra says, this