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Michael Lewis on His New Book and Old Premonitions

The best-selling author speaks with Katie about his latest book, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. 

Best-selling author Michael Lewis has a knack for extracting page-turning drama out of otherwise mundane and complicated subjects. Several of those books have been so good they’ve been turned into award-winning dramas starring half of Hollywood (hello, The Big Short and Moneyball). And now, Lewis takes a crack at the pandemic reality still unfolding. His new book is called The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. In it, Lewis uses the first-hand accounts of three main characters to unravel the government’s gross mismanagement of the COVID response, which lead to nearly 600,000 deaths (among the world’s worst outcomes). On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie and Michael Lewis talk about the CDC’s shocking downfall, the gaping holes in the public health system, and the secret group of doctors (the so-called “Wolverines”) helping to single-handedly patch that system together. We also get to hear from one of those doctors, Dr. Joe DeRisi, a biochemistry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-president of the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub.