Wake Up: COVID-19 Is Just a Modern-Era Prequel of What Could Come Next

Abstract

We were all surprised and shocked when COVID-19 hit us last year, not only by the experience of the first real pandemic of our times, but also by the complete lack of preparedness of society and governments for a catastrophic event of this magnitude. However, as the authors of Deadliest Enemy, Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Mark Olshaker, write in the preface to the 2020 paperback edition of the book, this pandemic should not have come as a surprise to any of us. They add, “Nor should the next one; and rest assured, there will be a next one, and one after that, and on and on. ... one of them will be even bigger and one or more orders of magnitude more serious than COVID-19” (p. xv).