A gripping investigation into the Covid-19 pandemics lasting effects on our bodies, systems, and trust in science.
The Covid-19 pandemic may have faded from headlines, but its shadow remains. In After Covid, award-winning journalist Jason Gale delivers a gripping, deeply researched account of a crisis that has fundamentally changed the world, and continues to reshape it in ways were only beginning to understand.
In this riveting account of the pandemic and its devastating ripple effects, Gale captures the pandemics messy realities—the panic it spurred, the misinformation and political infighting that stood in the way of controlling it, and the heroic efforts by scientists and health care workers to contain it. Gale exposes what went wrong, what worked, and what continues to threaten us. From the pandemics chaotic beginnings to the hidden toll of Long Covid, he examines how governments shaped—and sometimes warped—the public narrative around the pandemic. He documents the consequences still unfolding: the rise of chronic illness, the erosion of health care systems, the deepening mental health crisis, and the dangerous spread of anti-science extremism.
This book is a powerful, evidence-based reminder that pandemics dont end when case numbers fall. They linger in damaged bodies, strained institutions, and collective memory. Gale connects the dots between lingering symptoms and systemic failure, offering a sweeping view of whats at stake if we choose to forget. After Covid urges readers to confront the true scope of the pandemics legacy—and the vulnerabilities it has revealed in our systems, societies, and selves.
Jason Gale is an award-winning journalist and a senior editor and biosecurity correspondent at Bloomberg News based in Melbourne, Australia.
Table of Contents Dedication Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Warning Signs 2. A Modern-Day Outbreak 3. Virus Hunt 4. Viral Explosion 5. Locking Down 6. A Tale of Two Towns 7. Walking Pneumonia 8. Floating Petri Dishes 9. Not the Pandemic America Prepared For 10. A Harbinger of Tragedy 11. Ignoring the Tsunami 12. The Great Shutdown 13. Confronting Covid 14. Surviving Critical Covid Illness 15. Covid Babies 16. Birth of a Patient-led Movement 17. Lingering Effects 18. Multisystem Cluster Bomb 19. Covid Brain 20. Broken Hearts 21. Invisible Scars 22. Learning Loss 23. Healthcare Upended 24. Frontline Fallout 25. The Forever Pandemic About the Author
A gripping investigation into the Covid-19 pandemics lasting effects on our bodies, systems, and trust in science.
A thorough review of the multitude of profound harms that Covid wrought by one of the worlds top reporters. Jason Gale makes a clear case to fix what was broken at the pandemics start, lest we again find our lives imperiled and the world upended by the deadly pathogen.
—Jennifer Nuzzo, Brown University
Jason is a topflight health and science journalist who followed the course of the pandemic every step of the way. He interviewed many of the worlds important Covid scientists and health care workers on the frontlines. After Covid documents the key events of the pandemic; it will become an enduring chronicle for future students of pandemics and pandemic threats.
—Peter Hotez, Baylor College of Medicine
A must-read book for anyone interested in pandemics, politics, or people. Gale is a superb story writer who has managed, by careful analysis, to disentangle who did what and when. He explores the interaction among governments, scientists, and media, making this a compelling read.
—Dame Sally Davies, UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance
The fabulous and seasoned science journalist Jason Gale traces how effective mitigation efforts, medical treatments, and vaccines got entangled in politics and how the spread of misinformation and distrust of expertise cost many lives. Hard to put down, this book reminds us of the facts of the Covid-19 crisis and the dramatic broader consequences it had for society, for democracy.
—Lone Simonsen, PandemiX Center, Roskilde University
Jason Gale has written a clear account of Covid pandemic aftershocks created by the early use of blunt tools such as lockdown and provides a practical agenda to repair their damage by blending observations from his frontline reporting with post-pandemic knowledge. It deserves to be read by anyone who may be responsible for the next pandemic response including leaders in public health and politics.
—David L. Heymann, former Assistant Director-General, World Health Organization
This remarkable book captures the lived experience of the Covid-19 pandemic through the voices of those who had to face it head-on—scientific researchers, clinicians, patients, and public health officials. It examines the pandemics enduring physical aftermath, from Long Covid and rising rates of diabetes and other medical problems to the corrosive effects of misinformation that eroded social cohesion. History is always changing, so this book is an invaluable record of how it really was, as well as a call to do better—because there will be another pandemic.
—Gigi Gronvall, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Gale recounts how Covid ripped through countries, killed millions, sickened millions more. He also portrays the amazing scientific discoveries that helped to stop the dying. In a time of harmful misinformation, this book pays tribute to that incredible science that brought us masks, diagnostics, medicines, and mRNA vaccines that saved extraordinary numbers of lives.
—Tom Inglesby, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Jason Gale presents a meticulously researched and scientifically grounded account of the Covid-19 pandemic—the defining global health crisis of the twenty-first century. Tracing the virus from its emergence to the development of vaccines and therapeutics, Gale synthesizes cutting-edge research, public health policy, and virology to offer a comprehensive understanding of how the pandemic unfolded and its cascading impact. This insightful volume equips both experts and non-expert readers with the context and clarity needed to grasp the complexities of SARS-CoV-2 and the global response it provoked.
—Amesh A. Adalja, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Jason Gale delivers an evidence-based chronicle of the Covid-19 pandemic, from the initial viral hunt to the devastating forever pandemic. His work masterfully illuminates the multisystem cluster bomb of Long Covid, tearing back the veil on the invisible scars and chronic illnesses that continue to torment countless lives today.
—Akiko Iwasaki, Yale School of Medicine
It will be hard to find a more complete, objective, informed, and informative account of the Covid pandemic and its ongoing health and social consequences than recounted by Jason Gale in After Covid.
—Harvey Fineberg, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
This is an essential account of how COVID shaped the modern era and of what it means for the next pandemic. Drawing on his frontline reporting, Jason Gale deftly takes us from hospital wards to the halls of power, revealing the remarkable stories and astonishing details that defined the response. After Covid captures the crucial moments we risk forgetting and the lessons we still need to learn. If you care about todays health challenges and tomorrows threats, youll want to read this book.
—Adam Kucharski, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Jason Gale uses his outstanding journalistic skills to deliver an absolutely invaluable book, After Covid. While most of the world has turned its back on the pandemic, even attacking the scientists and healthworkers who battled SARS-CoV-2, the virus is still spreading, still claiming lives and causing lasting, lingering illness in hundreds of thousands of people. Thank goodness Gale didnt turn his back on them: this is a must-read.
—Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
