The Wey Forward March - May 2021

What can we learn about the Coronavirus crisis?

Millions of words have been written about Covid - 19, no doubt with countless more to come. Here are three books which seem particularly relevant at the beginning of 2021.

The Covid - 19 Catastrophe - what’s gone wrong and how to stop it happening again Richard Horton (Editor in Chief of The Lancet ), 2 nd expanded and updated edition, February 2021, Polity, £11.43; kindle edn £9.49 (Amazon). Chapters include (i) From Wuhan to the World (ii) Why Were We Not Prepared? (iii) The Politics of Covid - 19 (iv) Towards the Next Pandemic. Richard Horton (who is by background a doctor and has served in various roles with the World Health Organisation) scrutinises the actions taken by governments across the world as they sought to contain the novel coronavirus. He shows that indecisions and disregard for scientific evidence have led many political leaders to preside over hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and the worst global economic crisis for three centuries. “This is the book to read if you want to understand the response to Covid - 19. Powerful, beautifully written and reflective. 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”. Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh and a frequent television and radio commentator on Covid - 19. What are we supposed to think about the Coronavirus crisis? Some people say “This is a sign of the End. It’s all predicted in the Book of Revelation”. Others disagree “God is judging the world and through this disease he is telling us to change”. And others say “It’s all the fault of the Chinese, or of the World Health Organisation, or of the Government”. Tom Wright (a Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall in the University of Oxford, formerly Bishop of Durham) invites us to consider a different way of seeing and responding – a way that draws on the teaching and examples of scripture and above all on the way of living, thinking and praying revealed to us by Jesus. “This is classic Tom Wright. Running to only 88 pages it is accessible, but also demanding for those who think they know all the answers. It leaves one satisfied at having learned and yet wanting to know more. Superbly written, utterly Bible based” Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. God and the Pandemic – A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath Tom Wright, SPCK, 2020, £6.25 (Amazon).

Life After Covid - 19 – Lessons from past Pandemics

Bob Gordon, 2020, Bonovallum Books, £11.19 (Amazon).

This book investigates past epidemics and their aftermath starting with the Black Death in 1347, which re - emerged in London in 1665. A hundred years ago the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic swept across the world, and more recently there have been outbreaks of SARS, MERS and Ebola. The impact in a variety of fields is considered – including the effects on education, retailing, hospitality, tourism and the airline industry.

James Strawson

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