This book aims to present accurate and reputable data and information about the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the attitudes and behaviors of American society. The text includes a plethora of national surveys that document Americans' beliefs and behaviors related to the pandemic. Covey, an expert in the field of human services, examines these divergent views, from life-threatening to conspiratorial, swayed by political, historical, cultural, psychological, and social considerations. The volume affords greater prominence to aspects of the social sciences and humanities that pertain to this issue than to the medical factors. Identifying how societal perceptions were influenced by elements of collective behavior (e.g., rumor, panic, and protests), Covey asserts that these collective behaviors led to poor health decisions, resulting in more severe cases of COVID-19 and/or death. The book opens with a chapter on basic definitions and culminates with an overview of governmental efforts to mandate vaccination, which also addresses the lack of power to impose those mandates. This study provides an overview of how Americans understood and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic affected everyone’s life in some way, this an important read for all audiences. Recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

For anyone able and willing to look in the mirror of their experience with the age of COVID-19, Herbert C. Covey provides a panoramic view of the many ways we’ve been affected and the mysteries of this epidemic era still unexplored. Covey strips much of the confusion about American responses to the virus. He gives us a detailed yet concise X-ray of pandemic beliefs and behaviors that shaped our personal and national experience.

Donald C. Bross, University of Colorado