John Dimoia asked Lawrence Wright:

Given this book and its eerie correspondence to what is going on with COVID-19, did you do any background research with actual public health / MPH / epidemiologist researchers? Particularly the Indonesia sections read very realistically, and I used to live in SG, so was wondering what kind of background work went into this. Thanks!

Lawrence Wright Thanks, John. I spent a lot of time interviewing public health professionals. Indeed, I couldn't have written the book without their help. Some of them actually read all or parts of the book to ensure accuracy. I started the book in Indonesia because of its past history with novel diseases. I never spent time there, but glad you found it realistic.

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