Given the continued spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, we urgently reached out to John Barry, author of the award-winning New York Times best-seller The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.

Two years ago, we interviewed John about the expected implications should a pandemic of similar scale break out in today world. Little did we realize at the time how quickly his insights would prove relevant.

John was the only non-scientist to serve on the US government’s Infectious Disease Board of Experts and has served on advisory boards for MIT’s Center for Engineering System Fundamentals and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has consulted on influenza preparedness and response to national security entities, the George W. Bush and Obama White Houses, state governments, and the private sector.

John remains quite concerned at how the world’s readiness for a pandemic is woefully lacking, exacerbated by the hyper-connectedness of our modern society (i.e., the ease and speed with with people can travel).