This expanded updated and completely revised edition of The COVID-19 Catastrophe is the
authoritative guide to a global health crisis that has consumed the world. Richard Horton
editor of the medical journal The Lancet scrutinises the actions taken by governments as they
sought to contain the novel coronavirus. He shows that indecision and disregard for scientific
evidence has led many political leaders to preside over hundreds of thousands of needless
deaths and the worst global economic crisis for three centuries. This new edition provides a
systematic discussion of the pandemic's course national responses more transmissible mutant
variants of the virus and the launch of the world's largest ever vaccination programme. Only
now are we beginning to understand the full scale of the COVID-19 crisis. We need to learn the
lessons of this pandemic and we need to learn them fast because the next pandemic may arrive
sooner than we think.
