Take the dust-jacket off this one–it’s a banger of a design– and slip it over a dystopian YA novel. Then this can read as fiction. Dip into the now uncovered over the nonfiction afterwards and you will be only more discouraged. Of all the post-COVID post-mortems of how the purportedly most pandemic-ready failed, Tassier contextualizes it best within the history of public health. This is a skilled teacher’s version of how our systems can succeed and too often fail when we forego our strongest medicine: solidarity.