Prologue Chapter 1 COVID-19 Makes "It" Real Chapter 2 Preparing for a Pandemic: Were We Ready? Chapter 3 Politics, Science, and Partisan Warfare Chapter 4 The End of Wondering: The First Wave Hits the United States Chapter 5 The Great Reopening: Fools Rush In Chapter 6 Failure Persists: The Dark Winter Approaches Chapter 7 The Darkest Days Notes Index

Highlighting American cultural and political contexts, this book provides an in-depth assessment of the breadth and magnitude of the United States' errors in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An Unmitigated Disaster chronicles and explains the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency management expert Robert O. Schneider considers the quality of U.S. pandemic planning and preparedness; the quality and effectiveness of national, state, and local response efforts; and the performance of national leaders during this historic public health crisis. The book culminates in an assessment of how a predictable public health threat became an unprecedented health, economic, and security disaster. Schneider convincingly shows that conscious decisions were made by governmental authorities, beginning with the president, to ignore expert information and security intelligence in pursuit of other objectives. In other words, Schneider argues, if the U.S. was ill-prepared for or slow to respond to the crisis, it was because its leaders consciously chose to be ill-prepared or slow to respond. Readers will be fascinated by this behind-the-scenes exposé of a pandemic year.