Georgina Ferry and Professor Frances Ashcroft discuss 'The Coming Plague' by Laurie Garrett, and 'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story' by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja.
'The Coming Plague' is an extremely well researched book that presents a history of old and new plagues such as TB, cholera, influenza, Ebola and hantavirus, and tells the stories of the scientists who study them. Garrett delivers a warning about how ill prepared we are to cope with emerging infectious disease and how politics, bureaucratic infighting and drug company competition make things worse. Written in 1995, she was remarkably prescient as the Covid 19 pandemic has clearly shown.
'Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story' is an account of the Covid19 pandemic written by an expert on infectious disease who was at the heart of the fight against the virus, together with science writer Anjana Ahuja. It vividly describes the conflict between UK scientists and politicians on how to contain the spread of the virus. It also tells of Farrar’s initial concerns that the virus could have been manufactured, explains why there are so many variants, and considers what we should have done differently. The book was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Royal Society book prize.
Georgina Ferry is a science writer, biographer and broadcaster. She has a particular interest in women in science and her biography of the Nobel prize winning crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin was short-listed for both the Duff Cooper Prize and the March Biography Award. It has recently been reissued by Bloomsbury. Her next book, The Penicillin Century, will be published by OUP in 2026. She has also recorded a series of podcasts with people involved in Oxford’s response to the Covid19 pandemic.
Websites:
https://mgf.longferry.co.uk/
https://www.lauriegarrett.com/
https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/collecting-covid-oral-histories
