Michael Lewis describes how pandemic 'could've been so much worse'

Michael Lewis profiled the people who foresaw the financial crisis in "The Big Short." For his new book, "The Premonition," the stakes are even higher: he follows the doctors and public health officials who tried to raise the alarm about the coronavirus pandemic and tried to communicate to the federal government how severe it would be.

As severe as it was, though, now that the United States is emerging from the depths of the crisis, Lewis said the pandemic could have been more grave.

Then a California public health official, Dr. Charity Dean is the central hero of the book, who "said Mother Nature has given us a gift," Lewis said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. "Mother Nature has given us a gift because this could have been so much worse."

To date, more than 32.7 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the U.S., according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 582,000 Americans have died.

"It shocked me when she said it," Lewis said. But as Dean and others in his book pointed out, coronavirus could have been even more lethal, particularly in children. One could imagine a scenario where it would have roiled society even more deeply.

Mother Nature has "given us a gift to prepare, to look in the mirror and see who we are, and what our weaknesses are, and correct them," Lewis said.

As "The Premonition" details, there are plenty of weaknesses to go around, as the main characters try to flag the coming, and then unfolding, plague.

"If some money manager managed the financial risk the way this country has managed disease risk, you would be out of a job in about three seconds," said Lewis.

He credits the main characters in his book with a combination of courage and unconventional thinking to help them foresee the tension points in the pandemic. His prior work, "The Fifth Risk," attuned him to the value of government functionaries, and the COVID-19 crisis provided them with their moment.

Lewis hopes that the next time, the U.S. will be more prepared.

"Because they think it is going to happen again, that [next time] we're not the bad example for the world, we're the good example," he said.

Julie Hyman is the co-anchor of Yahoo Finance Live, weekdays 9am-11am ET.

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