The Rules of Contagion
Every week at Mission Critical we read at least one book and then review if for the ‘Weekly Briefing’ which we send out to our subscribers on Sunday. Sometimes the book is selected months out but our latest selection was chosen for its topicality - The Rules of Contagion by Adam Kucharski.
Even if the airwaves were not full of news about “contagion” and “pandemic” this would be a must read. However the timing behind this publication could not have been better.
The author, Adam Kucharski, is an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He’s a mathematician by training and has worked on global outbreaks including Ebola and Zika. He’s also a great communicator and this book is not some dry explanation as to why things become contagious but a fast read which is both insightful and remarkable.
You’ll learn a lot about the “R” number, the reproductive number based on how many people a person who is infected will go on to infect. For examples with measles that number can be as high as 20.
He explains the factors behind the R number:
Duration of infectious period
Opportunities for transmission
Transmission likelihood
Susceptibility of the population
Reading the book this week was fascinating because you could frame the current global responses in the context of the R number.
But, and this makes the book a must read, he doesn’t just stick to medical contagion but looks at how news and ideas spread.
His final sentences are probably the most optimistic and they explain why that, even if COVID-19 proves to be less troublesome than first thought, it will still have been an important contribution to our understanding and preparedness.
”In outbreak analysis, the most significant moments aren’t the ones where we’re right. It’s the moments when we realise we’ve been wrong...The moments that allow us to unravel chains of transmission, searching for weak links, missing links, and unusual links. The moments that let us look back, to work out how outbreaks really happened in the past. Then look forward, to change how they happen in future.”
The concerned citizen amongst the team enjoyed the book for educating us on what lies behind epidemics and pandemics and the marketers loved the science behind the viral nature of thoughts and campaigns.
And finally, let’s be honest, if you do end up having to self-isolate yourself for 14 days you are going to want something decent to read.
Go buy it now !
About The Author
Mark Izatt is a brand consultant living in London and founder of Mission Critical, a highly focused and curated weekly briefing for time poor and information hungry decision makers and THE FIRST, a monthly briefing containing 31 inspirational insights. Mission Critical is a digital product delivered via his Estonian Consultancy business.
