The Wisdom of Plagues

Award-winning New York Times reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. reflects on twenty-five years of covering pandemics—how governments react to them, how the media covers them, how they are exploited, and what we can do to prepare for the next one—in this “fascinating, ferocious fusillade against humanity’s two deadliest enemies: disease and itself” ( The Economist ). For millions of Americans, Donald G. McNeil, Jr. was a comforting voice when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. He was a regular reporter