The Big One

How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics

By: Michael T. Osterholm PhD MPH, Mark Olshaker

As bad as Covid-19 was, the next pandemic could be worse—but we have the tools to prepare, as revealed in this urgent, gripping warning by the New York Times bestselling authors of Deadliest Enemy.

The Covid-19 pandemic was the most devastating natural event of the last century, killing more than 7 million people around the globe, straining the fabric of societies internationally, and shaking the foundations of the global economy. And yet, as horrifying as the experience was, Covid-19 was not actually “the Big One”—the dreaded potential pandemic that haunts the nightmares of epidemiologists and public health officials everywhere, and which will alter life across the world on every meaningful level unless we are ready to deal with it. Indeed, even as we learn to live with Covid-19 and continue to recover from its worst effects, the next pandemic is already lurking around the corner—and it may very well be worse.

In The Big One, founding director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker examine past pandemics, highlighting the ways societies both succeeded and failed to address them; trace the Covid-19 pandemic and evaluate how it was handled; and look to the future, projecting what the next pandemics might look like and what must be done to mitigate them. Drawing on years of high-level research as well as cutting-edge analysis and an innovative hypothetical scenario threaded throughout each chapter, The Big One is a gripping, comprehensive, and urgent wake-up call. Because Covid-19 was just a taste of what’s to come. If we’re going to survive the next big pandemic, we need to be prepared.

©2023 Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker (P)2023 Little, Brown Spark