World War C

by Sanjay Gupta

  30 Several media outlets called February 2020 “The Lost Month”: See Marshall Cohen, Tara Subramaniam, and Christopher Hickey, “The Lost Month,” CNN, April 18, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/04/politics/trump-covid-response-annotation/.

  31 The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission) report is available online at https://9-11commission.gov/report/.

  32 See Gupta, “The United States’ One-year Coronavirus Checkup.”

  33 See Sanjay Gupta, “Why CNN Is Calling the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak a Pandemic,” CNN, March 9, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/health/coronavirus-pandemic-gupta/index.html.

  34 See the CDC’s resource page on pandemics at https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/index.htm.

  35 See the transcript of Dr. Messonnier’s briefing at https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0225-cdc-telebriefing-covid-19.html.

  36 Ibid.

  37 See Pam Belluck and Noah Weiland, “C.D.C. Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the U.S.,” New York Times, February 25, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/health/coronavirus-us.html.

  38 See Gupta, “Why CNN Is Calling the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak a Pandemic.”

  Chapter 2: Multisystem Organ Failure

  1 See the New York Times’s reports on the Red Dawn emails at www.nytimes.com. Also see Eric Lipton, “The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus,” New York Times, April 11, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html. Some of the emails were also reported by Kaiser Health News at https://khn.org/news/red-dawn-breaking-bad-officials-warned-about-safety-gear-shortfall-early-on-emails-show/.

  2 See Bob Woodward, Rage (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020).

  3 See Matthew Pottinger’s full interview on Face the Nation with Margaret Brenner on February 21, 2021, at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-matt-pottinger-on-face-the-nation-february-21-2021/.

  4 The exact words used by George Gao could not be confirmed. This statement captures Bob Redfield’s best recollection of the conversation when I interviewed him in February 2021.

  5 See Michael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel, and Drew Hinshaw, “Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin,” Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228.

  6 Ibid. Also see Jeremy Page, Drew Hinshaw, and Betsy McKay, “In Hunt for Covid-19 Origin, Patient Zero Points to Second Wuhan Market,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-hunt-for-covid-19-origin-patient-zero-points-to-second-wuhan-market-11614335404?mod=article_inline.

  7 See the Red Dawn emails, notably the one from James A. Lawler on January 28, 2020, at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html.

  8 Takuya Yamagishi et al., “Descriptive Study of COVID-19 Outbreak among Passengers and Crew on Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, Yokohama Port, Japan, 20 January to 9 February 2020,” Eurosurveillance 25, no. 23 (June 2020): 2000272, doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.23.2000272.

  9 See the CDC’s media statement, “Cruise Ship No Sail Order Extended through September 2020,” on July 16, 2020, at https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0716-cruise-ship-no-sail-order.html.

  10 See John S. Brownstein et al., “Analysis of Hospital Traffic and Search Engine Data in Wuhan China Indicates Early Disease Activity in the Fall of 2019,” (2020). The file can be downloaded at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42669767.

  11 For a summary of the main beats to these exchanges from my series of interviews that aired on CNN on March 28, 2021 (“COVID WAR—The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out”), see Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Covid-19: Birx Lashes Trump’s Pandemic Response and Says Deaths Could Have Been ‘Decreased Substantially,’ ” New York Times, April 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/28/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases. See Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Autopsy of a Pandemic: 6 Doctors at the Center of the US Covid-19 Response,” CNN, March 26, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/health/covid-war-doctors-sanjay-gupta/index.html. Also see https://edition.cnn.com/health/live-news/covid-pandemic-doctors-cnn-special/index.html.

  12 See Erin Banco and Asawin Suebsaeng, “Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts,” Daily Beast, May 13, 2020, https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts?ref=home.

  13 To see examples of these headlines, see “Fact Check: 94% of Individuals with Additional Causes of Death Still Had COVID-19,” by Reuters Staff on September 3, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-94-percent-covid-among-caus/fact-check-94-of-individuals-with-additional-causes-of-death-still-had-covid-19-idUSKBN25U2IO.

  14 See Steven H. Woolf et al., “Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021,” JAMA 325, no. 17 (April 2021): 1786–1789, doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.5199.

  Chapter 3: Snakes

  1 See Sanjay Gupta, “Dr. Sanjay Gupta Remembers ‘Giant’ of Neurosurgery Who Separated Conjoined Twins,” CNN, March 31, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/health/neurosurgeon-goodrich-tribute-conjoined-twins/index.html.

  2 See Mallory Simon and Melissa Dunst Lipman, “Charlotte Figi, the Girl Who Inspired a CBD Movement, Has Died at Age 13,” CNN, April 9, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/health/charlotte-figi-cbd-marijuana-dies/index.html.

  3 Plenty of online destinations can provide you with a basic course on viruses, from where they come from and their history to their biology, how they behave and act differently. I recommend checking out papers published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which is part of the United States National Library of Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). Sal Khan maintains a terrific set of videos you can also watch as part of his Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/).

  4 See Ann C. Gregory et al., “Marine DNA Viral Macro- and Microdiversity from Pole to Pole,” Cell 177, no. 5 (May 2019): 1109–1123.e14, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.03.040. Epub 2019 Apr 25.

  5 See Jonathan Lambert, “Scientists Discover Nearly 200,000 Kinds of Ocean Viruses,” Abstractions (blog), Quanta Magazine, April 25, 2019, https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-discover-nearly-200000-kinds-of-ocean-viruses-20190425/.

  6 See Nathan Wolfe, “What’s Left to Explore?” TED2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_wolfe_what_s_left_to_explore/transcript?language=en. Also see his book The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age (New York: Times Books, 2011).

  7 See Evan Ratliff, “We Can Protect the Economy from Pandemics. Why Didn’t We?” Wired, June 16, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/nathan-wolfe-global-economic-fallout-pandemic-insurance/.

  8 See Neeraja Sankaran, “On the Historical Significance of Beijerinck and His Contagium Vivum Fluidum for Modern Virology,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 40, no. 3 (July 2018): 41, doi: 10.1007/s40656-018-0206-1.

  9 For a review of Koch’s postulates, see the entry “Koch’s postulates” at ScienceDirect.com, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/kochs-postulates.

  10 See Stanley’s entry at the Nobel Prize organization’s website at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1946/stanley/facts/.

  11 See Theresa Machemer, “How a Few Sick Tobacco Plants Led Scientists to Unravel the Truth About Viruses,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 24, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-are-viruses-history-tobacco-mosaic-disease-180974480/.

  12 For everything you want to know about the genetic codes to life, see Walter Isaacson’s book The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021).

  13 See Coronaviruses: Are They Here to Stay? News report from the United Nations Environment Program, April 3, 2020, https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/coronaviruse
s-are-they-here-stay. Also access the UN’s Frontiers 2016 Report: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern at https://environmentlive.unep.org/media/docs/assessments/UNEP_Frontiers_2016_report_emerging_issues_of_environmental_concern.pdf.

  14 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps records of these events on its site at www.cdc.gov.

  15 See Vikram Misra, “Bats and Viruses,” Lancet Infectious Diseases 20, no. 12 (December 2020): P1380, doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30743-X.

  16 Numerous studies and articles have been published on the history and nature of coronaviruses. For an easy read see David Cyranoski, “Profile of a Killer: The Complex Biology Powering the Coronavirus Pandemic,” Nature 581 (2020): 22–26, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-01315-7.

  17 See James W. LeDuc and M. Anita Barry, “SARS, the First Pandemic of the 21st Century,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 10, no. 11 (November 2004): e26, doi: 10.3201/eid1011.040797_02.

  18 See Matthew Pottinger, “Return of SARS Sparks Concerns About Lab Safety,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2004, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB108288239686992644.

  19 See https://jamiemetzl.com/.

  20 See Ben Hu et al., “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-related Coronaviruses Provides New Insights into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus,” PLoS Pathogens 13, no. 11 (November 2017): e1006698, doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698. Also see V. Menachery et al., “A SARS-like Cluster of Circulating Bat Coronaviruses Shows Potential for Human Emergence,” Nature Medicine 21 (2015): 1508–1513, doi: 10.1038/nm.3985.

  21 See Shi Zhengli et al., “Bat Coronaviruses in China,” Viruses 11, no. 3 (March 2019): 210, doi: 10.3390/v11030210. Also see Jie Cui, Fang Li, and Shi Zhengli, “Origin and Evolution of Pathogenic Coronaviruses,” Nature Reviews Microbiology 17 (2019): 181–192, doi: 10.1038/s41579-018-0118-9.

  22 Hu et al., “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-related Coronaviruses Provides New Insights into the Origin of SARS Coronavirus.”

  23 See Shi Zhengli et al., “Hantavirus Outbreak Associated with Laboratory Rats in Yunnan, China,” Infection, Genetics and Evolution 10, no. 5 (July 2010): 638–644, doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2010.03.015. Epub 2010 Apr 7.

  24 See Jane Qiu, “How China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus,” Scientific American, June 1, 2020, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/.

  25 See Lesley Stahl’s interview with Jamie Metzl, “What Happened in Wuhan? Why Questions Still Linger on the Origin of the Coronavirus,” 60 Minutes, March 28, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-wuhan-origins-60-minutes-2021-03-28/.

  26 Alan Burdick, “Monster or Machine? A Profile of the Coronavirus at 6 Months,” New York Times, June 2, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/health/coronavirus-profile-covid.html.

  27 Ibid.

  28 Ibid.

  29 See Ahmed O. Kaseb et al., “The Impact of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) Expression on the Incidence and Severity of COVID-19 Infection,” Pathogens 10, no. 3 (March 2021): 379, doi: 10.3390/pathogens10030379.

  30 See James A. Robb and Clifford W. Bond, “Coronaviridae,” in Comprehensive Virology, ed. Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat and Robert R. Wagner, vol. 14 (New York: Springer, 1979).

  31 See Sasha Peiris et al., “Pathological Findings in Organs and Tissues of Patients with COVID-19: A Systematic Review,” PLoS One 16, no. 4 (April 2021): e0250708, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250708.

  32 See Bina Choi et al., “Persistence and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in an Immunocompromised Host,” New England Journal of Medicine 383, no. 23 (December 2020): 2291–2293, doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2031364.

  33 Ibid.

  34 See Meredith Wadman et al., “How Does Coronavirus Kill? Clinicians Trace a Ferocious Rampage through the Body, from Brain to Toes,” Science, April 17, 2020, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes.

  35 Ibid.

  Chapter 4: Cows

  1 Moderna keeps a timeline of their developments on their website at https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases. Their data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine were published in the New England Journal of Medicine: Lindsey R. Baden et al., “Efficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine,” New England Journal of Medicine 384, no. 5 (February 2021): 403–416, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2035389. Epub 2020 Dec 30.

  2 See “Covid-19 Vaccines Have Alerted the World to the Power of RNA Therapies,” Economist, May 27, 2021, https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/03/27/covid-19-vaccines-have-alerted-the-world-to-the-power-of-rna-therapies.

  3 You’ll find the story of smallpox in a lot of places, and here’s one: Stefan Riedel, “Edward Jenner and the History of Smallpox and Vaccination,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings 18, no. 1 (January 2005): 21–25, doi: 10.1080/08998280.2005.11928028.

  4 See Livia Schrick et al., “An Early American Smallpox Vaccine Based on Horsepox,” New England Journal of Medicine 377, no. 15 (October 2017): 1491–1492. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc1707600.

  5 See Larry Brilliant, Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History (San Francisco: Harper One, 2016).

  6 See Steven Johnson, Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer (New York: Riverhead, 2021).

  7 See Miles Parks, “Few Facts, Millions of Clicks: Fearmongering Vaccine Stories Go Viral Online,” NPR, March 25, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/980035707/lying-through-truth-misleading-facts-fuel-vaccine-misinformation. Also see cdc.gov and weather.gov/safety/lightning-odds.

  8 For a comprehensive history of the antivaccine movement, see the History of Vaccines website by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia at https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements.

  9 See Peter Hotez, Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021).

  10 For a basic understanding of vaccine technology, including how the new COVID vaccines work, see cdc.gov.

  11 See Anthony Komaroff, MD, “Why Are mRNA Vaccines so Exciting?” Harvard Health Blog, December 10, 2020, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-are-mrna-vaccines-so-exciting-2020121021599.

  12 For a short version of the long story, see Diana Kwon, “The Promise of mRNA Vaccines,” Scientist, November 25, 2020, https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/the-promise-of-mrna-vaccines-68202.

  13 See David Cox, “How mRNA Went from a Scientific Backwater to a Pandemic Crusher,” Wired, December 2, 2020, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech.

  14 See Sanjay Gupta and Andrea Kane, “Do Some People Have Protection Against the Coronavirus?” CNN, August 2, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/02/health/gupta-coronavirus-t-cell-cross-reactivity-immunity-wellness/index.html.

  15 Thaddeus Stappenbeck, “If You Don’t Get Sick After Your COVID-19 Vaccination, Does It Mean Your Immune System Isn’t Working?” Cleveland Clinic, “Health Essentials.” February 16, 2021, https://health.clevelandclinic.org/if-you-dont-get-sick-after-your-covid-19-vaccination-does-it-mean-your-immune-system-isnt-working/.

  16 See Amanda Sealy, “Manufacturing Moonshot: How Pfizer Makes Its Millions of Covid-19 Vaccine Doses,” CNN, April 2, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/health/pfizer-vaccine-manufacturing/index.html.

  17 See Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Benefits of Vaccines Are a Matter of Fact,” CNN, January 10, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/health/vaccines-sanjay-gupta/index.html.

  18 Several credible sites have debunked myths about the COVID vaccines and continue to post updates. Among them: Johns Hopkins Medicine at https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines-myth-versus-fact; and the American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) at https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/6-myths-a
bout-covid-19-vaccines-debunked.

  19 See Brenda Goodman, “Why Covid Vaccines Are Falsely Linked to Infertility,” WebMD, January 12, 2021, https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210112/why-covid-vaccines-are-falsely-linked-to-infertility.

  20 See Sarah Zhang, “The Oldest Virus Ever Sequenced Comes from a 7,000-Year-Old Tooth,” Atlantic, May 9, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/a-7000-year-old-virus-sequenced-from-a-neolithic-mans-tooth/559862/.

  21 See Matthieu Legendre et al., “In-depth Study of Mollivirus sibericum, a New 30,000-y-old Giant Virus Infecting Acanthamoeba,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 112, no. 38 (September 2015): E5327–335, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1510795112. Epub 2015 Sep 8.

  Chapter 5: P: Plan Ahead

  1 See Bonnie Henry, Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks that Shaped a Pandemic (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2021).

  2 See Catherine Porter, “The Top Doctor Who Aced the Coronavirus Test,” New York Times, June 5, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/canada/bonnie-henry-british-columbia-coronavirus.html.

  3 See Thom Barker, “Dr. Bonnie Henry Given New Name in B.C. First Nation Ceremony: ‘One Who Is Calm among Us’, ” Victoria News, May 26, 2020, https://www.vicnews.com/news/dr-bonnie-henry-given-new-name-in-b-c-first-nations-ceremony-one-who-is-calm-among-us/.

  4 See Nicholas A. Christakis, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live (New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2020).

  5 See Albert Camus, The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Knopf, 1948).

  6 See Metabiota.com.

  7 See Ben Oppenheim et al., “Assessing Global Preparedness for the Next Pandemic: Development and Application of an Epidemic Preparedness Index,” BMJ Global Health 4 (2019): e001157, https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/1/e001157. Also see Evan Ratliff, “We Can Protect the Economy from Pandemics. Why Didn’t We?” Wired, June 16, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/nathan-wolfe-global-economic-fallout-pandemic-insurance/.