Plagued (Planet in Crisis)

Pandemics are infectious diseases that cross over international boundaries and spread out of control. These diseases put immense pressures on the societies they strike and can widen cracks in social structures that had been previously ignored. Plagued recounts the history of deadly pandemics?smallpox, plague, cholera, Spanish flu, and AIDS?as well as the current crises faced by populations across the world: malaria, meningitis, measles, SARS, and now COVID-19. Renown environmentalist and science writer Albert Bates explains how infectious disease is measured (how quickly it can infect and how deadly it is), how viruses invade the body, how they evolve, how they are different from bacteria, and how they travel from host to host. Pandemics cannot be eliminated but they can be stopped; the trick is discovering what will curtail any one particular outbreak. The book covers what methods have been used for infectious outbreaks in the past, what social solutions are the most effective in general, and how to bolster our resources before the next pandemic strikes. Bates offers a fresh perspective on how to co-exist individually and collectively during a pandemic, and encourages us to re-examine ?normalcy? and ways we can change going forward.