Uncontrolled Spread

Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic

By: Scott Gottlieb

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller

“Uncontrolled Spread is everything you’d hope: a smart and insightful account of what happened and, currently, the best guide to what needs to be done to avoid a future pandemic." (Wall Street Journal)

“Informative and well paced.” (The Guardian)

“An intense ride through the pandemic with chilling details of what really happened. It is also sprinkled with notes of true wisdom that may help all of us better prepare for the future.” (Sanjay Gupta, MD, chief medical correspondent, CNNP)

Physician and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb asks: Has America’s COVID-19 catastrophe taught us anything?

In Uncontrolled Spread, he shows how the coronavirus and its variants were able to trounce America’s pandemic preparations, and he outlines the steps that must be taken to protect against the next outbreak. As the pandemic unfolded, Gottlieb was in regular contact with all the key players in Congress, the Trump administration, and the drug and diagnostic industries. He provides an inside account of how level after level of American government crumbled as the COVID-19 crisis advanced.

A system-wide failure across government institutions left the nation blind to the threat, and unable to mount an effective response. We’d prepared for the wrong virus. We failed to identify the contagion early enough and became overly reliant on costly and sometimes divisive tactics that couldn’t fully slow the spread. We never considered asymptomatic transmission and we assumed people would follow public health guidance. Key bureaucracies like the CDC were hidebound and outmatched. Weak political leadership aggravated these woes. We didn’t view a public health disaster as a threat to our national security.

Many of the woes sprung from the CDC, which has very little real-time reporting capability to inform us of COVID’s twists and turns or assess our defenses. The agency lacked an operational capacity and mindset to mobilize the kind of national response that was needed. To guard against future pandemic risks, we must remake the CDC and properly equip it to better confront crises. We must also get our intelligence services more engaged in the global public health mission, to gather information and uncover emerging risks before they hit our shores so we can head them off. For this role, our clandestine agencies have tools and capabilities that the CDC lacks.

Uncontrolled Spread argues we must fix our systems and prepare for a deadlier coronavirus variant, a flu pandemic, or whatever else nature - or those wishing us harm - may threaten us with. Gottlieb outlines policies and investments that are essential to prepare the United States and the world for future threats.

©2021 Scott Gottlieb (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

A must read... CDC is incompetent and corrupt

For an agency that is charged with public health recommendations, the CDC has been REPEATEDLY incompetent and corrupt at every crisis. This is a must read... also read Robert Kennedy's "The Real Dr. Anthony Fauci"

Excellent

This was an excellent look back on the causes effects and management of Covid 19.
The responses of Trump administration. The lack of Global compassion is a sad testimony to our times.

Excellent book from a calm, centrist expert

A good look into the major government and science issues of the pandemic. It is an accessible overview from an expert who, it seems to me, has consistently tried to convey a calm, reasoned public health message outside of the hyper political froth of what passes for public discourse these days.

Very good read

I followed Dr. Gottlieb after his very interesting daily updates on CNBC. I used his input to help make decisions regarding my business and couldn't wait to read the book. It's sad to read that various Governmental Organizations behaved so badly and without a common purpose, but not surprising. I wonder if one day we can change this or if it's just the normal human condition. I highly recommend this book

A look behind the curtain

This book pulls back the curtain on how poorly the CDC operates. While much of the information presented is publicly available, assembling it would require a significant effort. Anyone who has an opinion about masks, vaccine, or the pandemic needs to read this book.

An excellent examination of Covid-19 and how it evolved in the United States and the world.

Scott Gottieb’s scared the Hell out of me!

His book lays out the background of the CoVid19 Pandemic, warts and all. Gottlieb an MD and former head of the CDC brings an insiders view of what really happened to us as a country. I will not give any spoilers but there is hardly a section of the book that doesn’t reveal the mistakes that were being made and why they happened, even naming those responsible. This book should be required reading for all thinking Americans. I’ll end this teaser review with the fact no one wants to say out loud too many people have died, more are going to die and it could have been controlled. It’s an important guide of what should have been done but wasn’t and a guide of how to handle the next pandemic. Americans prefer to keep their heads buried in the sand, if we don’t look at it then nothing bad will happen. Wake up everyone, read this book and if it doesn’t win a Pulitzer Prize then the government fixes the selection. Thank you by Scott for your insight. What a roller coaster of a read. Simply the best I’ve come across!

Very informative

Hope someone in a position to effect change will read this and actually create a plan for responding to the next chrisis.

Must read for those sincerely interested

This is one of those books that everyone should (or needs) to read. It is equal parts fascinating and infuriating. It is clear from the book that the failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were legion, cannot be pinned solely to any particular officials or organizations. This book should be a wake-up that we need to take a serious look at operational aspects of our public health apparatus, and how we communicate public health information and data with both domestic audiences and international partners. If you are of the opinion that the problems during the pandemic can be pinned on specific people or organizations you are probably correct. The target of your ire likely deserves their share of blame. However, you’d be equally incorrect in shifting too much blame toward that same target. At nearly every inflection point during the pandemic there were missteps or outright failures, at all levels. Some of them occurred before anyone in the U.S. was even aware of COVID-19. Some occurred in the earliest days of U.S. awareness while others persisted for weeks and months.

For those sincerely interested in understanding what went wrong, this is the book you should read. Understanding the entire, complex picture is vital to fixing the problems that exacerbated the pandemic. Focusing only on specific individuals, groups or policies, and ignoring the multitude of other factors is a sure fire way to assure the next pandemic hits us just as hard, and is just as crippling.

Very insightful

This is an insightful, fair-minded account of many of the policy and operational failures that left the US so vulnerable to COVID-19. My main criticism is that Dr. Gottlieb seems to focus on the very real mistakes made by the CDC to the exclusion of other important mistakes made by the FDA, the White House, state governors and legislators, and Congress.

Scott G

Excellent analysis. Most went over my limited scientific knowledge. Worth being stretched. Well done Scott