Relentless

Relentless is the compelling story of how one of America's leading health care systems — the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City — mobilized to confront the defining health crisis of our time: the coronavirus pandemic.

This book is based on unprecedented access to internal hospital documents and more than 100 candid interviews with the chief executives of Mount Sinai's hospitals and its Icahn School of Medicine; with physicians and nurses on the front lines throughout the system who pushed themselves to the brink to save lives; with renowned research scientists who urgently worked to decipher the virus and find ways to counter it as quickly and safely as possible; and with brave patients, staff members, and medical students who summoned up their reserves of energy, compassion, dedication, and courage to fight the disease. Relentless closes with an exploration and explanation of lessons learned — and of what needs to be done, and what is being done, to prepare for future pandemics and other health crises.

Author Deborah Schupack, an acclaimed novelist and journalist, tells this story with the velocity and intensity of a gripping thriller and with the care and detail of great reporting. Her masterful writing is accompanied by unforgettable photographs, many here seen for the first time.

If you read one book about the heroism and fears, the triumphs large and small, the strength and improvisation and daring that the fight against COVID has entailed and required, make it Relentless.