Yasmeen Abutaleb's "Nightmare Scenario: An Inside Look at How the Trump Administration Responded to the Pandemic That Changed History"

Becky: Shocking to learn the Trump Administration had no idea how to handle the pandemic and chaos reigned from day one until the end of his administration.

United States on Aug 13, 2023

José Huerta Ibarra: Investigación periodística con ribetes de historia. Trabajo muy sólido que retrata los personajes con claridad novelesca. Sorprende el apoyo de los norteamericanos a un presidente tan incapaz como Trump. Llama la atención como muchos de los empleados lo apoyan en sus tomas de decisión tan estúpidas. Excelente retrato de una persona tan soberbia.

Mexico on Jul 16, 2021

Kerry V. Magruder: This Fourth of July weekend I read Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History. I highly recommend it. The two authors, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, are reporters for the Washington Post, and excerpts of the book have appeared there previously. The book weighs in at nearly 500 pages. It is investigative journalism focused exactly where we need it: on the creation of a first, source-based, comprehensive account of what actually happened with public health in 2020. I'm tempted to say it reads like a John Grisham novel, except every page provides the backstory to events we all-too-clearly remember!

I am happy how the backstory succeeds in humanizing some of the doctors I wasn’t sure about or had actually come to distrust: Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield, and Stephen Hahn. I now understand and appreciate their actions more than I could as an observer of headlines and press conferences “watching from a distance.” Not that they didn’t make mistakes (as did Fauci), but the story of the four of them (including Fauci) working together against all the idiots is compelling. Unfortunately, it does nothing at all to...

United States on Jul 06, 2021

HistoryBuff: The odds that anyone who thought that Trump and his administration did a "tremendous, amazing, no one could have done better" job handing the Covid pandemic are low. Subterranean kind of low. That means almost everyone looking to read this book already has a decent idea of how badly the pandemic was mismanaged in 2020. We all remember watching, jaws hanging, as the President of the United States suggested that bleach could be used inside the human body to defeat Covid. So why do we need an entire book about it? After all, we lived it. We need to read it because it brings all the pieces together in a thorough and well-researched format. It was one thing absorbing the stories as they came out, day after day, for almost a year. Seeing the epic, tragic, and utterly avoidable mismanagement in one book is devastating and essential to grasping the totality of what happened.

The authors present an even-handed and fair examination of all the players. No one is above criticism - no, not even Dr. Fauci - and credit is given when sensible and reasonable measures were taken. I was taken by the personal portraits of many of the people at the center of action, especially those of Dr. Birx...

United States on Jul 03, 2021