I'm Back!

Dear Silent Lunch readers:

This newsletter has been on pause much, much longer than I anticipated. I apologize for the radio silence.

There are two main reasons for the extended hiatus. First, I found that completing edits on my book (more on that in a moment!) was much more time-consuming and labor-intensive than I would have liked. Second, an opportunity outside of journalism came my way, which has taken up most of my bandwidth.

That said, I’ve missed working on this newsletter. And I’m going to start posting again here at Silent Lunch. I’m very excited to resume bringing you the unique reporting and commentary that you came to expect and enjoy. However, the schedule is likely going to be erratic, at least for a while. Because of that, I’m keeping the paywall down and paid subscriptions will remain paused, even as I bring you new material.

Now, on to the big news:

Finally, after years of work, An Abundance of Caution, my long-awaited book is finally coming out! I’m honored that MIT Press is publishing the book, which is especially noteworthy given that I’m not an academic. An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, is a searing indictment of the American public health, media, and political establishments’ decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. My goal for the book is for it to serve as a historical document, and for it to blow readers away, revealing the true story about what really happened, with extraordinary heretofore-unknown details that will enrage, fascinate, and inform.

The book is being released on April 22, but I urge you to preorder it now. It is available for preorder at every major online bookstore, so please order from wherever you prefer. I’ve linked to Amazon because they offer a price guarantee, which means you will get the discounted price they apply to most new books once they go on sale.

Preorders for books are extremely important. Publishers and their distributors (in MIT Press’s case it’s the behemoth, Penguin Random House) decide how many resources to allocate toward marketing and selling a book based in significant part on preorders. Bookstores also track preorders and often choose whether to carry a book and, if so, how many copies to order based on advanced demand. In short, preorders carry an outsized influence on a book’s success.

An Abundance of Caution is 100X anything I’ve ever done. If you’ve enjoyed my investigative journalism, this book will take you on a journey like you’ve never been on before.

I am excited to share that the book has gotten an incredible early reaction from some of the smartest and most respected public intellectuals, writers, and scientists:

“An Abundance of Caution is a book the world badly needed. David Zweig writes crisply, with a rare combination of journalistic rigor and empathy. But his book is unsparing in revealing how frustratingly predictable many of the mistakes made during the pandemic were—and how partisanship was used to suppress the pursuit of science and undermine the public interest. As much as some might hope to forget the pandemic, An Abundance of Caution is indispensable reading for preventing the next catastrophe.”
—Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and author of Silver Bulletin

“This book is important. It tells a disturbing story. Faced with the erosion of its legitimacy and authority, the scientific community needs to engage seriously with Zweig’s analysis.”
—Paul Romer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Director of the Center for the Economics of Ideas at Boston College

“For those interested in the failure of evidence-based medicine and public health to protect our children during prolonged COVID school closures, An Abundance of Caution is a uniquely rigorous, incisive, and must-read account.”
—Jeffrey S. Flier, MD, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Former Dean, Harvard Medical School

“A powerful analysis of the largest public health intervention in modern history. Using a clear, scientific approach, Zweig asks piercing questions that shed light on medical dogma propagated by groupthink.”
—Marty Makary, MD, Johns Hopkins surgeon and author of Blind Spots

“Through both his reporting and his congressional testimony, David Zweig was one of the only journalists brave enough to tell the truth about the ill-fated school closure policies during the pandemic. His book is a meticulously researched history of unpopular, scientifically unsupported, socially catastrophic policy decisions.”
—Matt Taibbi, investigative journalist, bestselling author, and publisher of Racket News

There will be more to come from Silent Lunch soon. In the meantime, preorder your copy of An Abundance of Caution (and perhaps a second or third copy for a friend or family member) now.

Thank you,

Dave