Spike: The Virus vs the People by Sir Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja

Was Covid-19 engineered in a Chinese lab? Did it leak out by accident, or was it let loose deliberately? Did the Government “follow the science”? And what can we do to prevent catastrophes on this scale happening again?

Sir Jeremy Farrar and co-author and Financial Times science columnist Anjana Ahuja aim to answer these questions in their account of the pandemic so far. Farrar, a scientist with medical and immunological training, is a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Vaccine Taskforce.

The book includes private interactions with a roll call of some of the biggest names in the global and UK response, including WHO director general Tedros Adhanom

Ghebreyesus, Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, as well as Boris Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings. It draws on phone calls, emails, texts and tweets, and is mostly a personal account, from December 2019 through to the second wave.

Spike claims to read “like a thriller”, and it certainly does pull the reader in. Equally as gripping is the frantic communication with other scientists at the beginning of the outbreak in China, as they struggle to get hold of information before it’s too late.

Written by a top scientist,

Spike is more technical than some other accounts, but nonetheless a page-turner. It gives a fascinating insight into the world of the movers and shakers in global public health and an education in the mutation of viruses and development of vaccines. It also seethes with the despairing incredulity now typical of so many scientists at the decisions – or lack of them – taken by the Government.

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

THE BOROUGH PRESS, £14.99 (EBOOK, £7.99) REVIEW BY GEORGIA HUMPHREYS