So often the important current event non-fiction available is based on the USA, with only passing reference to Canada. This collection from doctors, nurses, advocates, caregivers, and others impacted by Covid-19 in Canada was important and necessary and also engaging and highly readable. It includes essays on the impacts on health care workers (especially nurses) and burnout, of loss of visitation rights, of the failure to listen to and react to the science, the lack of assistance or care toward Canadians with disabilities, examinations of what could have been done better, and ways in which so many are doing important advocacy work on behalf of all of us. I wish there were a bit more variety in terms of region (a large percent of contributors were from Ontario, a few from BC, and a tiny smattering from other provinces) as well as in terms of including LGBTQ and First Nations voices, but overall I highly recommend this to all Canadians who care about our health care system, our health care workers, and the health of all of us. And to non-Canadians who also wish to learn more about how Covid-19 was handled worldwide and the global impacts that continue.

As a Canadian health care provider (x-ray tech) there was a lot to like about this book. As with many healthcare professionals who worked through the pandemic, I really struggled with the declining level of support from the public and government over the course of the pandemic. As someone with a compromised immune system, I also found the anti vaccine movement to be a real slap in the face as I worked alongside my colleagues with seriously ill patients, knowing if I were to become sick there was a good chance I would be among the more severely impacted. This book allowed me to hear from others who felt the same as me, and allowed me to see that I am not alone in how I am feeling. The collection includes a good number of people with different backgrounds and stories, however I do feel that in regards to the medical aspects it focused a lot more on the doctors and nurses, and not the other members of the healthcare team, who were often forgotten about even in the early days of the pandemic (the fight for x-ray techs in Ontario to be included in the pandemic pay being one example). I also found that there was a lot of focus on Ontario, and the rest of the country was lacking, although both of these criticisms are addressed by the author who notes that the stories collected came from her social media requests, so would probably focus on people who already follow her, which would be mostly Ontario doctors and nurses. It would have been nice if perhaps more of an effort was made to provide better coverage anyway.

I did really like that the book highlighted some of the issue that healthcare is facing in Canada, and shows that many of the issues we are dealing with post pandemic were already there pre pandemic, but were exacerbated by the pandemic to the point they can't be ignored anymore.

I received a free advance copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I thought this collection did a good job of capturing a moment in time, which has in some ways now passed and in others continues to haunt us. The testimony provided by each essay stands as a protest about our continuing compacency toward a disease that can be devastating to sensitive groups. I did find that too few of the essays took an analytic point of view arising from a presentation of objective data about the pandemic. Certain aspects of the discourse also seem quite specific to the Canadian context and to certain moments of the pandemic's development (for example, the debate over whether the virus is actually airborne).

I loved this book. It is an anthology of short nonfiction stories from the pandemic, written with a broad range of viewpoints. The stories were heart-breaking, eloquent, and informative. Most of the stories were excellent. Although the book is Ontario-centric, I feel that the lessons here are broadly applicable. I just hope that the mistakes and mismanagement reported here are not repeated in the future. This book is a must-read. Thank you to Netgalley and Aevo UTP for the advance reader copy and to the people who shared their very painful stories.