In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee offers a relatively strong rebuke of the political handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. The authors challenge prevailing narratives of crisis leadership and call into account the many costs borne by society when political expediency outpaced evidence. Drawing on both prior pandemic plans versus the reality of what leaders executed during the initial year of the pandemic, they ask sharp questions: Were dissenting voices heard fairly? Were the harms of shutdowns and school closures balanced against benefits? Did basic rights of citizens receive due attention?
The authors used a balanced approach to systemically pick apart narratives and talking points from health experts and political leaders throughout much of the political spectrum. What emerges is a picture of expert advice becoming politicized, of public policies that privileged those who could work from home while leaving essential workers vulnerable, and of commitments to civil liberty that were too often sidelined. The sharpest critiques were focused on schools and early childhood education, pointing out the disparate impact towards lower income families and the impacts of masking on childhood social and educational development.
While the book could be considered an exercise of armchair quarterbacking, the authors do offer a strong case that many policies were adopted without sufficient scrutiny of tradeoffs or long-term consequences. At times, the tone leans toward indictment rather than exploration, and some readers might feel the analysis does not give enough credit to those who were acting without full information or under severe uncertainty. However, this book offers a strong incitement of our hyperpartisan and siloed country that increasingly lacks unity and can trend far too heavily towards dogmatic and too far from nuanced balance in decision making. Politics quickly drove decision-making around how COVID originated, how quickly businesses reopened, or how long schools required masking, and the authors offer a pretty clear case that “following the science” was arguably as political as it was scientific.
In Covid’s Wake is an essential book for anyone wanting to understand not just what was done during the pandemic but how we might do better next time.
MY RATING: 4.5
