Adding a reflective piece to the COVID-19 puzzle, Dr. Widad Akreyi offers a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking pandemic. Will the COVID-19 crisis ever be over? What does the outlook look like in an altogether more chaotic period? How do variants impact illness severity? Do genes and gender play a part in disease risk? Are there any adverse events that happen after vaccination? What should I be watching for? If you have been asking yourself questions like these, this book has the answers for you. By combining her unsurpassable compassion and exemplary intelligence with her instant access to the latest medical research, Dr. Widad Akreyi has created a book that will be of tremendous help to you in navigating a smooth path past these trying times. Stunningly illustrated and written by an expert in the field, Anatomy of COVID Calamity supplies readers with an objective, data-driven assessment of not only the threats facing us right now, but also the problems we all will face in the years ahead. It gives you the unvarnished truth of what is known and what remains unknown with respect to Covid, making the book a key resource for all readers. Widad's compelling messages will resonate widely. Her infectious positivity will guide you in warding against the virus and moving forward.

Veteran health writer Sara Gorman compellingly argues that the backbone of medical conspiracy theories is not misinformation but lack of trust--in our hospitals and in our democracy writ large. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust in the healthcare system seems to be at an all-time low. Conspiracy theories are now mainstream, and distrust of government health agencies is common among private citizens. Yet many of those same individuals still profess trust in their doctors. What, then, is driving the general mistrust in medicine, and how can the public's faith be restored? The Anatomy of Deception investigates the cause behind this seeming uptick in distrust by tracing the unexpected connection between medical mistrust and the move toward far right ideology in the United States. Drawing on personal qualitative research and interviews, health writer and expert Sara Gorman challenges traditional concepts of medical mistrust and argues that the loss of institutional trust in American health care signals a larger breakdown in democracy as a whole. In six short chapters, Gorman advances the idea of medical mistrust not as a byproduct of personal or historical abuses but as a direct result of bias, miscommunication, and lack of access that has slowly eroded trust in the public health system over time. She argues that we can build back trust in medicine through investments in health equity as a first step towards healing the schisms present in modern American society. Wide-ranging yet incisive, The Anatomy of Deception uncovers the root of medical mistrust in America and how we can regain trust in the systems and values central to our democracy.

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest science policy failure in a generation. We knew this was coming. Warnings about the threat of a new pandemic have been made repeatedly since the 1980s and it was clear in January that a dangerous new virus was causing a devastating human tragedy in China. And yet the world ignored the warnings. Why? In this short and hard-hitting book, Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, scrutinizes the actions that governments around the world took – and failed to take – as the virus spread from its origins in Wuhan to the global pandemic that it is today. He shows that many Western governments and their scientific advisors made assumptions about the virus and its lethality that turned out to be mistaken. Valuable time was lost while the virus spread unchecked, leaving health systems unprepared for the avalanche of infections that followed. Drawing on his own scientific and medical expertise, Horton outlines the measures that need to be put in place, at both national and international levels, to prevent this kind of catastrophe from happening again. Were supposed to be living in an era where human beings have become the dominant influence on the environment, but COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of our societies and the speed with which our systems can come crashing down. 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.

This, conference proceeding, book contains invited articles and contributory papers from the 2nd International Symposium on Disaster Resilience and Sustainable Development, organized by Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, on June 24–25, 2021. It includes contributions from researchers and practitioners working in the area of disaster mitigation and risk reduction for sustainable communities. The articles cover the topics such as on tools and techniques of hazard identifications, risk assessment, engineering innovations for hazard mitigation, and safe design of structures to the vulnerable systems. The content caters to research scholars, students, industry professionals, data analytics companies, re-insurance companies, government bodies and policymakers, who work in the field of hazard modeling and disaster management.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a classic tragedy of destruction following errors in judgment. Naomi Zack presents social and political aspects of this disaster as it unfolded in public health through federal and local government structures, society, culture, and the economy. Federalism combined with politics in facing and denying the SARS-CoV2 pandemic has revealed both weaknesses and strengths. Preparation was woefully inadequate for the 2020 tidal wave of COVID-19 that broke over the medical system, the educational system, the lives of the poor, essential workers, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and women, especially. Rhetoric and conspiracy theories flourished, as Red and Blue Americans politicized the pandemic. Police reform became urgent after billions witnessed George Floyd’s death. The war of the statues evoked new conflicts over free speech. The X-ray nature of COVID-19 has revealed the United States to itself, in character, incompetence, superstition, and injustice, but also in dedication to caring for others and abiding resilience. The core of democracy held after the 2020 election but vigilance is newly important and required. As a record of this US Plague Year and an argument for why we need to prepare for Climate Change, as well as the next pandemic, this book is an essential resource for every student, scholar, and citizen.

This book provides the first extensive examination and analysis of the use of the urbanscape during the disaster process, by connecting its elements throughout disaster phases: the pre-disaster phase, consisting of reduction in form of prevention and mitigation; the disaster event phase, consisting of the disaster impact followed by the disaster effects; and the post-disaster phase, consisting of the post-disaster recovery. This work includes the analysis of 18 disaster case studies worldwide, of which 12 case studies are within the natural and 6 case studies within the man-made disaster category. The criteria for choosing these examples is based on the division into natural and man-made disaster subcategories and the period of their occurrence, from 1991 to 2021. The main purpose of this comparative analysis is to reveal the use of the urbanscape during the disaster process, through the role of its open public spaces during each disaster phase in both natural and man-made disaster categories. The book is a useful read for researchers and students of disaster management.