• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2022 April #2
  *Starred Review* By now, most people are fluent in the parlance of pandemics—lockdowns, social distancing, masking, PCR tests, contact tracing, flattening the curve—but they are also understandably worried about where we go from here. In this concise and lucid book, global health activist Gates reflects on the current COVID-19 pandemic, considers future ones, and renders several sensible recommendations for prevention. Heed lessons on success and on failure from our response to COVID-19, Gates advises. Prioritize establishing a pandemic prevention team, (the equivalent of a global fire department). Enhance disease surveillance to identify outbreaks early, and protect folks quickly. Discover new remedies rapidly, expediting testing and approval of drugs. Have vaccine pipelines ready to roll (development, manufacturing in massive quantities, efficient delivery). Ramp up efforts at creating universal vaccines for coronaviruses and influenza viruses. Practice makes perfect: implement full-scale exercises to gauge the world's readiness to locate and react to outbreaks, strive for health equity, increase investment in public health infrastructure, design and financially support a sound pandemic prevention system. Gates emphasizes the importance of urgency; complacency itself is a threat. Passionate but never preachy, Gates delivers an expert, well-reasoned, and robust appeal for the world to unite in averting upcoming pandemics. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

BILL GATES is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. In 1975, he cofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Today, he is cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he has spent more than twenty years working on global health and development issues, including pandemic prevention, disease eradication, and problems concerning water, sanitation, and hygiene. He has three children.