- Name: The First Shots : The epic rivalries and heroic science behind the race to the coronavirus vaccine.
- Author: Brendon Borrell
- Genre: Medical Science
- Book Post No. : 48
- What is it about? : When Covid19 hit the world in 2020, the general public spent the first few months thinking that it was going to pass quickly but it wasn’t to be. Few months later all the talk was about vaccines. How soon can they be developed and how it was the only hope mankind had before deaths peaked again next winter. This book chronicles the journey of the development of these vaccines. From the time the medical world got to know about the existence of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China till the first patient in the world who got the vaccine jab, this book details it all. The story though is confined to USA and UK and does not mention much about the vaccine development work in other parts of the word notably India and Russia.
- How I came to read it? : I was driving through a locality I had never been to before and spotted a library to which I headed over to check it out. It has small book sale going on and this was one of the interesting books that caught my eye so I bought it.
- Did I like it?: Its an okay read. Books on topics like this can get super interesting, sometimes with a thriller like feel to it. This wasn’t so. It had a bit of a bland approach. When compared to one of the best Medical books I read called China syndrome this book was a bit underwhelming. It still has a lot of good info and the chronicles the timeline of the vaccine development well.
- Positives: To the point and straightforward.
- Negatives: A bit bland.
- Any other personal notes, observations, fun facts etc.: –