Summary

In Chapter 5, “Clairvoyance,” Carter was “asked to stick around . . . to advise the new administration in case of emergency” (112, 113). He gave up his job “running hospital systems” to work on the White House’s pandemic strategy (113). He soon discovered that “all the work he’d done selling the world’s first pandemic strategy, simply vanished” (113).

In April 2009, Carter began investigating a novel flu virus, the swine flu (115). He saw the virus as the start of a pandemic and thus a “threat to national security” (116).

Meanwhile, Richard kept journals of his life. The journals included descriptions of his work with Carter regarding “a serious outbreak of respiratory illness” (117, Lewis’s italics). As the men studied the virus, they became frustrated with the CDC. They believed schools should be closed, but the CDC did not support this plan, leaving it up to the states to decide...