"The Covid-19 epidemic is an unprecedented health crisis that brings to the surface how connected we are with each other, regardless of where in the world we are; a complex world in which an infection, a virus, transcends nations, identities, and cultures. The epidemic reminds each of us that we are members of a large community and forces us to imagine that in times of crisis we are a unique organism, a unified body. If we do not show solidarity, it is mainly due to a lack of imagination. Our community in such circumstances is not our neighborhood, our village, our city; it is all of humanity."

In this short book, written in Rome in the early days of March 2020, the award-winning Italian author uses his literary talent and scientific background to analyze in a simple and compassionate way the pandemic of 2020 and any other that awaits us in the future. "The situation transcends identities and cultures," he writes. "The epidemic shows how in the globalized world we are all connected, interdependent, and inseparable from each other."

What are we doing wrong? What can we do and what should we change? Who among us knows which pathogenic factors were released by the fires in the Amazon forests last summer? Who is able to predict the consequences of the mass extinction of animals that occurred recently in Australia? Microorganisms that science has not even identified will soon seek a new home.

Paolo Giordano does not make prophecies or give lessons. And yet, we learn a lot, some of which we may never have faced before: the dilemma of quarantine, the danger of fatalism, the concept of chaos, the blame placed on the fateful Chinese market, fear, easy prophecies, our place in the ecosystem, the sanctity of truth in science, and the even greater sanctity of doubt, half-truths, obvious errors, everything that may make us say "afterwards" that all this pain was not completely in vain."