Sir, This is a thoughtful and lovely read, thank you for that. However, it is marred horribly by your casual reference to Spielberg’s “OCD.” This is neither accurate nor funny, and truly demeans the suffering of millions of people who really do have OCD, which is so much darker and more horrifying an illness than being organized, or keeping things by color.
Please take a bit to review the real illness, and why casual references to it do so much harm to its sufferers, as that could further inform your otherwise engaging writing.
Thank you.
80
Once was enough.
9
Netflix list of 58 pandemic movies you can watch right now 😎
Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman was excellent.
https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/best-pandemic-movies-on-netflix-hulu-prime-and-more.html
21
It makes a heck of a double feature with Stanley Kramer's On the Beach.
17
I finally heard the term "R-O (naught)" from the film, the term used to describe how many others one infected person could spread the virus to. It gave me a jolt, I can tell you.
16
I too searched out contagion this week and enjoyed how scarily realistic it is to Corona virus. yes it's theatre at it dramatic best but they do say art imitates life.. maybe now life is imitating art.
14
What I liked best about the movie is how it did focus on all the surfaces and implied how viruses spread. I showed this to my kids and hope they found it useful to realize how often they touch things other people touch.
34
I showed Contagion last month to our graduate students as an adjunct to our seminar course and was amazed at how much better the movie got in the 9 years since it was made.
34
Great review. I came across Contagion again while surfing the movies available on my television. The spread of the disease all happened so fast... I almost wish the movie would have taken more time, another hour, to flesh out the characters that the actors portrayed so compellingly -- Kate Winslet was taken too soon. But I guess that was the point.
25
Just checked my multi-county library system website for this film only to find that all 60 copies of the DVD or Blu-ray have been checked out!
21
Thank you, Mr. Morris, for this piece. In the early days of news of the novel coronavirus, I wondered why Contagion was never mentioned - now it seems to be everywhere. And obviously, for very good reason. I worked on the film, & it was clear that Scott Z. Burns & Mr. Soderbergh were committed to accuracy & precision, with a team of public health experts - Kate Winslet spent time at the CDC & was advised by a CDC doctor in preparing her role. 'Fomates' & 'R-nought' were two things that really stuck with me from the script - I knew somehow they would be relevant in real life.
May I also recommend an astonishingly prescient piece (except maybe not, it should have been obvious), dating back to 2004, from Harper's magazine, written by Dr. Ronald J. Glasser: We Are Not Immune. You may need a subscription to read, I don't know, but go to harpers.org & take a look.
49
We have contactless credit cards now. We'll be OK!
8
I saw the movie when it first came out, and my DVD is out on loan.
I thought that it was an exceptionally intelligent film, embodying so many examples of "Show, don't tell," like: [SPOILERS]
--the audio clip about the nurses refusing to work until anti-infection protocols are in place (a very reasonable demand, as demonstrated during the SARS epidemic, which devastated care-givers), juxtaposed with an image of a nun caring for a patient
--the 911 menu options: this is what society and order have come to
--the series of pictures of dead monkeys, followed by not-dead ones
--the bottles of vaccine coming off an assembly line shows the passage of time
--putting the virus to "rest" in the freezer next to SARS and H1N1--the crisis is over
16
Dear Mr. Morris,
Thank you for taking the time to write about this movie, which is being forwarded to a friend of mine in the field of public health, an admirer of your work, who gave me circa 2011 one of your books.
She has been traveling the world on mission for many years from East Asia to India and onto the South Sudan. America is her home. A brilliant water engineer, she continues to branch out, and your recap of 'Contagion' will be of interest to her. Project WASH is close to her soul.
Away on another continent, my fear is that she may not be able to return as scheduled because this virus is spreading at an alarming rate (a neighbor earlier thought it was astonishing that The National Guard is now in this sinister scenario. For fear, he laughed uneasily).
You are both made of stronger fabric, and my idea of fun in limbo is tackling the daily NYT Spelling Bee, or falling asleep in front of 'Bachelor'.
"The only people who flip out are civilians" may not be true in this real documentary, having seen since the beginning of this week, some Americans, injected with a perverse sense of pride, working, or walking about as if they were courageous and invincible pioneers.
"Blindness" by Jose Saramengo comes to mind, where only one woman left with sight is able to take the lead and organize forays into the remains of supermarkets; you would like to revisit or review the above, timely for your readership.
Stay well and panic-free. Your voice is needed.
9
There are several movies I watched throughout the years on pandemics in the US. They always have the same end.
President & family will be the first to be saved & most of the population dies.
13
All I have to say is that you cannot examine a virus at the "cellular" level. Viruses by definition are not cells and do not have cells.
10
@Holly To be fair, you might observe it interacting with (much larger) human cells, and that’s the relevant cellularity?
24
@Holly
You are correct that viruses are not cells.
In fact, they are not technically alive, though they exist as obligate internal parasites of living cells.
That said, it is a curious truth that the movie character's use of the term "pleomorphic" to describe the virus is not necessarily inaccurate.
According to Wikipedia, pleomorphic microbes are able "...to alter their morphology, biological functions, or reproductive modes in response to environmental conditions."
If you do a little internet search, you will discover that there are in fact, pleomorphic viruses!
Sometimes truth is even stranger than fiction.
11
I have thought a lot about this movie this past week. Especially the very end, where they go back to the very beginning, in the jungle, and then trace it up to Patient Zero, Gwyneth, shaking hands with the chef cutting the animal. Yikes. Deja vu all over again.
30
One of the worst movies I've seen in a while. It was just a really bad version of Outbreak.
5
An infectious disease specialist I know recently told me that "Contagion" was pretty accurate in terms of disease spread and the effects that uncertainty and bad information can have on an already apprehensive population. The Jude Law character I found especially relevant, given the internet rumor that drinking bleach would prevent the virus from getting a toehold. Maybe the best we can derive from the whole covid-19 experience is to appreciate the importance and vital necessity of listening to scientists and experts who actually know what they're talking about. We'll need that appreciation when the droughts, heat waves, floods and heretofore unimagined effects of climate change become commonplace.
61
@M. Blakeley
Your friend is correct. The virus in Contagion is loosely modeled on the epidemiology of a real (and rather dangerous) RNA virus called the Nipah virus. It has been shown to spread from the fruit bats that are it's natural reservoir through pigs to humans (the initial infection chain depicted in the film). Nipah is also capable of spreading person to person. According to Wikipedia, Nipah has an approximately 50 to 75 % mortality rate in humans.
Our careless destruction of (and expansion into) rainforests around the globe has brought humanity into contact with a number of similar viral agents.
49
I rewatched this movie, myself, a few weeks ago. It was a perfect primer for the things that are currently unfolding. I used to think of it as a horror-thriller, and it is, but now I know it is also in many ways far too realistic.
22
Watching movies or videos that are bound to increase panic and irrational behaviour. Sounds brilliant! On a secondary ( pedantic) note: if this is the first opportunity one has to learn how to wash one's hands and overall avoid cross -contamination, that's a sad commentary on one's upbringing.
Spoiler alert: each and every one of our lives ends in death! So panic away, while you can.
6
Maybe YOU don’t have any vulnerable loved ones, but I do. It’s not panic to take precautions. You’d be a lot more worried if the most important person in your life was immuno suppressed.
32
Read Albert Camus, The Plague! A great tale of a quarantined city and the plague that arises and plays itself out. Also explore the mathematical function known as the logistic. All diseases of this nature follow the path of the logistic function.
11
I don't have access to Contagion and never saw it. My Netflix has Outbreak, which I re-watched this week and enjoyed it. It was not as similar it sounds as Contagion is to this virus. I am looking for all movies related to it because I do think that people are overreacting so it more entertaining than scary. More people die from the flu. My area has no hand sanitizer and we are almost out of toilet paper. People here in NC are already going a little crazy with only 2 cases of the virus.
7
@DLN We don't know yet if more will die from the flu than from this. But the more relevant point: the flu is already taxing our hospitals close to their max. Another hefty outbreak like this Covid-19 could bring could stretch them beyond the breaking point. Italy's hospitals are already in trouble.
15
Two that you know of. I think it’s way more widespread than we know, because we have not been testing for it. In a week it’s going to be common everywhere.
As it is I’m sitting here wondering if my intellectually challenged co worker who thought it was a good idea to come to work sick (despite the fact that she had sick time available) has put us all at risk. What part of stay home if you are coughing and have a fever did she not comprehend?
We desperately need some help for people so they don’t feel like they have to come in sick. We need to find a way to fund everyone, be they a rocket scientist or an Uber driver so they can be responsible and STAY HOME without having to worry about going bankrupt. There’s a lot of people, myself included, that have little or no sick time
26
Thanks-just enough humor. I have been thinking about this movie a lot- I have relatives that say this is still the scariest movie they have ever seen. One last comment on the Kate Winslet character- she died.
44
@Andrea Damour Spoiler alert!!!!
16
Thankfully they killed off Paltrow in the beginning
39
@Andrea Damour
I would hope so since the author said that they checked out her brain on the autopsy.
18
As I recall it was "Contagion" that had that haunting scene of the selfless heroine visible through a clear plastic body wrap, being buried in a makeshift grave. A horrifying depiction of our humanity and vulnerability and the anonymity of death. A reminder of what it is like for first responders and health acre workers, especially nurses, who selflessly and valiantly risk their lives to save others. In the end the front line workers who sacrifice themselves do not get to bask in glory . It was a testament to the incredible courage and love for others that these people show us every day, and a reminder that being famous or making the most money is not the greatest reward, nor the holiest state, to which a human can aspire.
55
Over blown, over hyped movie, filled with overacting.
3
@Jack Lemay Come to Italy and you will change your mind about overreacting.
29
@salvatore denuccio
That was a comment on the quality of the acting, not of the script.
2
I fear the virus will peter out and the death toll will be fairly low, less than the annual flu, but then Herr Hair will take the credit and be reelected by a landslide for keeping us safe.
11
@Wonderdog Except he won't be reelected.
10
@Wonderdog But would you PREFER that more people die in order to influence the election? That's a bit much, and exactly what many Trumpsters are saying "we" want.
9
@Rebecca This all implies, of course, that we have some way to determine that only certain people take ill. If that's the case, i want off this planet.
2
Of the many words I'd choose to describe the person who wondered if Chinese food were dangerous to eat - nincompoop is not one of them.
In an age where solid information is available to us instantly, twenty four hours a day, there is no excuse for such ignorance. And yet.
Only this week a MAGA hatted woman defined socialism as 'not standing up for white people.' The corona virus is among the least of our worries as a nation, and a culture.
80
Best part of the film was seeing Gwyneth die.
7
@Terri Cheng The audience cheered when she did - and did so after Kate Winslet died. One of my best movie memories.
3
@Terri Cheng
Amen. Although not as happy and ending as she got in Se7en...well, happy for me, as I am not a Gwyneth fan.
1
Some stories done on this virus by the media can't be avoided because they serve the public's interest. This isn't one of them.
This was totally unnecessary, shed no light, and served no purpose but to garner clicks for the Times and make those who read the headline and/or article that much more on edge.
Is that what we need now?
1
Another movie I would recommend is Virus from India. It is a movie based on the real Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala and does a really good job of showing the responses, reactions, and emotions of front line responders as well as their near and dear ones. Available on Amazon Prime.
18
As a microbiologist with an interest in pandemics (although they are not my area of expertise) the movie Contagion struck me as the most likely scenario for a highly contagious and lethal new pathogen. It actually made me feel ill.
It especially hits home as every day I watch people not wash their hands after using the bathroom; freely wipe their eyes, nose, and mouth with their hands, and then open doors or push elevator buttons with those same hands; shake hands and then touch their faces. Sneeze into their hands and then touch everything in sight. Doorknobs and door push plates sticky with hand grease/food, that have clearly not been cleaned for years. Etc., etc., etc.
We are slobs and have no concept of a reasonable level of hygiene. Now I see news reports showing people frantically cleaning door handles, doors, handrails, desks and tables. These are things we should have already been doing regularly. They are certainly things I have been doing.
How long since you cleaned your keyboard, mouse, and mousepad? I’ll tell you - probably never.
Maybe this will be the wakeup call we need to improve our regular hygiene habits. I doubt it, but will hope for it anyway. Trivia - you know what the most contaminated object you touch on a regular basis is? It’s the gas tank fuel filler. That handle has probably never been cleaned. Every time I fuel my vehicle I wipe down the handle and wipe my hands with baby wipes afterwards. Stop worrying about toilet seats.
35
Meh. Mostly paranoid OCD talking but, whatever floats your boat.
4
@Andy
Sorry Andy, but as a retired hospital RN I have to say that Desire is not paranoid or OCD but in fact, "spot on".
The world around us is filled with pathogens and most of us come into contact with thousands (more likely millions) of them every day.
The main reasons that even the most "slobby" among us don't typically die from them is that we have evolved a whole variety of external physical barriers to them (like skin) and a robust and elegant internal immune system.
20
@John that is why I said Meh. As a former medic (anyone can use an irrelevant call to authority) the answer for most of us isn't a sterile environment, quite the contrary, it's regular exposition to pathogens. Fear of an unsterile environment, desire for a sterile environment, and pushimg for a sterile environment is counterproductive and itself a debilitating pathology.
8
I would recommend "Pandemic," on Netflix, as an alternative. It SEEMS prescient for this particular moment, but only because it portrays serious scientists and medical workers who do the hard work whenever something like this comes up, and know that it's only a matter of time (like, maybe, now?) that something really serious raises its ugly head...again. It seems to have been made pretty recently, but I haven't actually checked. There are a lot of references to, um, funding...or the lack thereof.
There ARE people in the world who have dedicated their lives to understanding these outbreaks, and trying to mitigate their effects. I would love to hear more from them, with (to use the name of a recent Stones tour), No Filters. Ahem.
14
You've written:
“ 'Contagion' explains the terror; it’s an explanatory drama. Scott Z. Burns wrote the script, and he embeds us with the crisis managers, scientists and bureaucrats who are looking, rationally, for answers, devising containment strategies, working toward a vaccine. Elected government is all but negligible."
Again: "Elected government is all but negligible."
I think it may be time for Soderbergh to release a new edit of "Contagion." I was in Chicago in late 2010 when a Senate Hearing was being filmed for the movie. Dick Durbin - as in U. S. Senator Dick Durbin - was the Chairman at the hearing. I was among the politicians and lobbyists in the front row of the crowd. ... The scene was cut from the film.
It's not too late. Maybe it's time for a real Senate Hearing now. With Dick Durbin in a real role at the hearing.
11
@Logan I was an extra in that scene, too. It was fascinating to see Soderbergh direct and photograph the sequence. I keep hoping an extended version will be released. Scary film, nevertheless.
10
I missed seeing 'contagion' in the theater. My bad. I need to watch just to see Kate Winslet deliver that pithy line, "stop touching your face." For that alone, all Americans should see this flick.
10
The disease in Contagion was so much more lethal it’s almost silly to compare our current situation to it. I only saw it when it first came out, but didn’t it pretty much kill everyone who got it?
But the one thing I thought was so interesting in that movie was the explanation of the R-naught factor—the math of contagion. It’s the high contagion aspect of COVID-19 that is so scary and while it doesn’t merit panic, it certainly merits serious action to stop the spread. And some day, there may be a more lethal disease that spreads this easily and then we will really want to have an administration who knows what they’re doing. Heck, a friend of mine and I were just saying that the emails we both got from Delta and United Airlines were much more informative than anything coming from the White House. Who knew people die from the flu? Inspires so much confidence...
22
"Understand the virus at a cellular level?" Viruses don't got cells.
@vince
But they get into cells. They do their damage inside cells. Isn’t that more likely what he meant?
19
Thanks, I didn't know that.
"A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism." [wikipedia]
6
@Kally Agree, but that's not what he wrote or understood. But I'm just quibbling, thanks your response.
2
Many horror films of the 50s-70s have to do with the irrational fear that most Americans have about "catching something from somebody." Night of the Living Dead" "Invasion of the body Snatchers" More recent dystopian films are far less subtle about this fear and are right up front about infected people coming to get us.
Many think these movies were about the fear of communist infestation. I rather think its because we associate microbes with evil.
The reality is microbes are everywhere and mostly they are beneficial. Our hand sanitizer mentality is ridiculous.
6
The movie, Contagion, sheds light on the fact that CDC is more than just a health care organization, it is also an intelligence gathering organization in the same sense as the CIA. Kate Winselt's character is much more than an "inspector:' she is an Epidemiology Intelligence Officer, who collects information about disease, so that CDC officials can develop policy to confront it. The movie also emphasizes the clandestine, or secretive, way in which vaccines and antidotes are developed and distributed. In the movie, the antidote is developed in secret and even once its produced and ready for distribution those facts are not revealed, except Fishbourne's character risks his job and security clearance to give it to the woman. So when you hear the government talk about the virus and what it is doing to combat it, keep in mind that you are not gutting the full story, or you getting the story it wants you to hear. Also keep in mind that there are some people, depending on their social and political import, who will get the antidote and vaccine before others. Cheers!
10
Letter of Recommendation: Plague Inc to play on your iPhone!
3
Or, you could turn off the TV and read Albert Camus' "La Peste"...
8
@Joseph
I'm rereading Death in Venice and just requested the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of the Visconti film from the library to watch again. Photos of empty tables in the Piazza san Marco made me think of it.
4
This was an thoughtful, enjoyable article until the head-scratching, "The movie doesn’t predict the racism and xenophobia that have broken out in the United States." In a country of 330+ million there is bound to be a few buffoons and boors, just like the tame example given. "Racism" and "xenophobia" used to actually mean something, but they've been so over-used that they are losing their significance and weight.
4
Dear Joshua,
People have actually been attacking Asian-Americans for looking Asian, because the attackers are racist and xenophobic. It's not just a few boors, it's thousands of Americans acting violently racist, and Trump's encouragement of racism is partly to blame.
23
Here in #Hove I had missed this movie - and shall seek it out. It reminds me that there was a terrifc Australian movie The Clinic. I wonder if this is around?
3
The director of Parasite made "The Host" in 2006 with the same lead. It's about a monster that results from formaldehyde in the drain of a morgue that get into the Han River in Seoul The resulting monster is the host of a new virus whose speared leads to a national panic. A lonely fight to rescue his daughter from the monster leads to persecution and brain surgery by the state while the monster thrives. All the face masks and haz mat suits are very 2020.
7
I can't tell you how long it's been since I heard or saw the word nincompoop. Probably since the last time my mother said it. Three cheers for more words!
11
@Gary It is used a lot in my world. I guess once it gets into your lexicon, it becomes easy to repeat. But yes, a word our mothers used a lot because there are a lot.
4
@DLN Her other go-to was imp, as in "You little imp!" Then you knew you'd been really bad. Love ya Mom!
3
"Contagion" does not come up with a worst-case scenario, at least at the local level. Imagine this: an epidemic complicated by a Category 5 hurricane hitting a major city in a country run by a government which doesn't believe in government.
12
Aw well, worst-case scenario would be more like, ten-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course, the impact of which would eliminate, at minimum, all land-based life. And of course, Bruce Willis movies aside, there isn't a thing we could do about a major asteroid impact. So yeah, worst-case, every human will die for certain, and nothing can be done about it.
3
"to see just how bad things can get"
Personally I don't waste time using Hollywood fiction to get a handle on reality. After all Hollywood is just one giant fantasy.
2
This movie was quite good. I don't need to watch it again, but I just wanted to say, of a lifetime of great performances Kate Winslet's in particular was fantastic.
The irony is I would have recommended this movie pre-outbreak just to appreciate its story telling style and high quality.
12
Watching timely cinema is key to understanding humanity and societal nuances during unique scenarios. We should not be afraid to relate to a fictional situation.
9
Thee is no way I would rewatch Contagion at this moment in our history. It feeds the worst of our fears. It's a movie, it's suppose to entertain and scare us, and that's exactly what it does (and more). I would not recommend this film right now.
4
The most important part of the movie is the last 1-2 minutes where it shows how the virus spread into humans in the first place. Deforestation. Environmental destruction. Nature is trying to tell us that destroying ecosystems will come back to haunt us. We never listen, and we'll never learn. We prefer to run after the viral fires. It would be much better if we prevented them.
49
I rewatched Contagion as soon as I heard about Coronavirus. It was definitely not comforting.
15
Dear Susan,
It should be comforting though. Covid-19 is nowhere near as bad as the bat-pig flu in Contagion, not even a tenth as deadly. And it all works out in the end in Contagion too, doesn't destroy society or humanity. My opinion is that watching it should cause relief that things aren't anywhere near as bad today as in the film.
6
@Susan
Definelty do not watch Pandemic. I watched "Contagion" but Pandemic gave me noghtmares
6
@Capt John
I loved them both. Not for the awful reality, but for the truth.
3
Very nice piece. The most memorable scene is when the Red Cross runs out of body bags.
The movie promotes the narrative of a slow totally powerless governmental response but fortunately the WHO and CDC come across well. The uncertainty of the threat we do not understand is what interests filmmakers. The real threat of running out of ventilators is never shown. Epidemics - the cripplers and killers -have been a great resource for screenwriters. (see Cinema MD. A History of Medicine on Screen)
11
@Eelco The response to the body bag shortage, "We tried to get more from Canada, but they are just going to wait and see" - is what immidiately crashed into my head when I heard that India is restricting exports of some generic drugs now (and they are one of the world's biggest manufacturers of generics), in response to supply chain issues and a desire to protect it's own population
9
@Eelco Running out of body bags would be blamed on the Democrats and then the bodies - should mass deaths happen in our world - would just be piled on each other in a pit and burned.
I like the governor of NY making his own sanitizer; I can't stand the overuse of hand sanitizer which is just making germs super germs. Soap and water is the best thing. I wonder if just plain vinegar would work which I think is the main ingredient in Governor Cuomo's new hand sanitizer.
1
Read this somewhere: Never take anything seriously that's shown in a place where they sell candy in the lobby. And I'm a big media fan. It's mostly fun, not real.
1
@K You mean like the gift shop at my local hospital?
14
Humor is needed right now. But I haven't rewatched Contagion, so I contented myself with watching Dustin Hoffman and Renee Russo slog through the execrable "Outbreak" and the one and only season of the tv series "Containment". Now that one is creepy.
6
Thanks for this humor in a nervous time. I watched Contagion a few days after my county announced the first case of community transmission in the U.S., just to boost my mood. I, too, winced when Paltrow's hand reached into the peanut dish, and I'm never using a salad bar again. The scene that stuck in my mind was the riot at the pharmacy when they didn't have enough of some drug that was supposed to help, and later the bingo-style lottery to determine people with which birthday would get the vaccine first. All in all, it made me glad I work from home.
9
I've been thinking about Contagion too. A huge difference between that fictional time a decade ago and now is that Contagion assumes a US government both confident and in good faith. We've got neither. Pretty scary.
51
SPOILER ALERT: For me the best thrill in Contagion is the ending, which reveals how the virus was introduced to the human population - by deforestation which forced fruit bats to leave their natural habitat and hang around nearby farms. I was stunned by the prophetic accuracy of this detail because after the making of that flick there was the Ebola outbreak in western Africa, a region unfamiliar with this disease. Epidemiologists traced the outbreak to a fruit bat forced out of its natural habitat by deforestation. Seems these flying rodents are reservoirs for all kinds of viruses and are best left isolated in the wild.
As for the coronavirus, scientists have so far traced its origin to the notorious wildlife trafficking in China, possibly from bats or from the critically endangered pangolin, all poached from their natural habitats. Chinese demand drives the global illicit wildlife trade, so it was nearly inevitable that the latest virulent disease attacking humans would originate in that country. Then again, considering the destruction of other animal habitats around the world and in the U.S., there's no doubt more killer epidemics lurk in our future.
29
And a conclusion from all this is also that humanity fully deserves whatever plagues might result from our deforestation and pollution.
13
@Helena And yet, right now as we speak these wet markets of wild animals are openly operating in Loas,Cambodia,Thailand,Viet Nam and who knows where else.So now the rest of the world pays for their Folly.Time to go to war against this threat in any means we must.This is insanity!
6
@Helena I have been thinking that the virus is a way of nature reacting to overpopulation. I can see that something was bound to happen with the close proximity of people and animals. How appropriate that the virus started from wild animals in a market place. They should be in the wild and left alone. We deserve this from all the overpopulation and deforestation of our world. Unfortunately, the innocent ones are the ones who actually die rather than the magnates who cause all the poaching, building and overpopulating. There is a Facebook group called Overpopulation which shows the crazy kind of crammed quarters of some areas in China and India. Time to change before nature does it for us.
8
Watched it recently. While very much an exaggeration in terms of virus caused deaths parts of the film were almost too accurate and too painful to watch. Not exactly an escape from day to day reality.
6
Around Christmas 2017, I came down with a version of the flu, which was particularly nasty that year. I think having gotten the flu shot a few months earlier as I always do helped a lot, but I was still bedridden for about a week and began reading something I had downloaded to my Kindle but forgotten about. Turned out to be "Station 11" by Emily St John Mandel about a flu pandemic that wipes out most of the world's population! I am not a Sci Fi
fan, but found this book very compelling, under the circumstances.
17
“The other day, I watched a businessman wipe an entire train seat with disinfectant and then park himself in it before it dried.”
It’s impossible to know if that disinfected seat protected him and/or others from the virus. But, as is the case with reducing carbon emissions to mitigate climate change, there’s certainly nothing to lose.
Clean air, water, energy, and surfaces can only help.
4
@J What did he do with the wipe? I do not take a subway or train so I do not know if they have a trashcan on board. But it seems fruitless to me to wipe down a seat when the virus is spread airborne too. And a mask does not seem to help much. It is all just numbers. I do not like to shake hands and have been fist bumping as an alternative for years. Even doctors shake hands and then use a hand sanitizer. Seems like a waste of resources and making the bugs resistant.
3
I presume this movie hasn’t made Trump’s playlist. His “policy” actions might have been a little different.
4
Just rewatched this. Riveting. So well directed. And obviously based on a lot of research. I wish it had remained in the realm of fiction.
15
So we cough and sneeze on our sleeve around the inner elbow and then we bump our outer elbow areas? No thanks.
2
Don’t shake anyone’s hand! Just don’t. Elbow bumps and foot taps are juvenile. Say hello or goodbye like an adult and resist the urge to be creative.
16
Dear Lynn in DC,
What exactly is juvenile about an elbow bump or foot tap? Why is being juvenile, or creative, a bad thing? Anyway, I'm going to keep shaking peoples' hands, because I just don't buy into this insane panic over what is basically just another version of the flu.
2
@Dan Stackhouse Media hype and the virus's severity are not mutually exclusive. The flu is more predictable, the impact of this is more uncertain, hence the abundance of caution.
I hope you don't get the virus. If you do, you'll likely recover.
But what's juvenile is ignoring the real threat this poses, less so to you perhaps, but to those you might spread the disease to should you get it. Never mine the impact that callous indifference will do in overburdening the health care system.
22
Dear TS,
Naturally, if I get this virus, I'll be fine. But my callous indifference is completely reasonable. Humanity is working hard at destroying the world. Don't know if anybody remembers, but just recently Australia caught fire, basically because of humans. Environmental destruction is a far larger problem than this insignificant virus, hence my attitude.
2
Eerily, I watched a 2016 movie, called, "Viral", that was a mixture of science fiction and reality, that was set in the USA, about a virus and people being contained in their homes, and it showed a real life TV clip of Obama saying you don't have to worry about the virus as it is not airborne. If it was airborne then we would be very worried." It showed people catching the virus and going into self isolation, and then the government sending in the military to keep them within their own region. It was a great movie and well worth watching.
This movie was eerily in NZ TV about a week or two before a public announce was made about the coronavirus. The movie was made in 2016.
8
Contagion really isn't a good movie. It's a Sonderbergh rush-job, similar to so many of the movies he pops off without a thorough development of the script (most recently High Flying Bird and The Laundromat). The major problem is the wonderful final sequence, outlining how the contagion first entered human society, should have started the movie so that we're engaged and knowledgable as to the real source of the threat. Recall with Corona how quickly we had a fairly good idea of how/where the virus began.
Yes, it's always fun to see how the virus spreads, but for a good story that does that, and then moves on to more, check out Stephen King's 1400-page-magus The Stand.
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@DD I SO disagree with you! I thought the movie was gripping and disturbing. When saw it in a theatre, I quickly forgot that it starts with "Day Two", and it isn't until the end that you see how it all began. I thought that was brilliant! After all, once it's ravaging the earth, what's the difference how it began? Containment and cure become the focus when you're talking about many millions of fatalities.
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My husband and I both worked at CDC for more than 20 years each. Contagion gets a whole lot right and not much wrong (or not terribly wrong). No Epidemic Intelligence Service officer (not "inspection officer") would wear heels. They're in the field for too many hours a day. And, BTW, Bryan Cranston isn't "some kind of admiral" -- Public Health Service officers are members the uniformed services and carry real Navy ranks. My husband was a captain.
It was refreshing to see frontline public health and health care workers being shown for the unsung heroes they are. We rewatched this last week and not only has it held up over time, but seems prescient in its depiction of a zoonotic chain infection. Despite having his parents disappear on a moment's notice throughout his childhood, the movie scared our 20YO son enough that he had to quit watching. It's a good primer for what can happen when everything goes wrong.
Like some of the posters here, we don't think COVID-19 is the high death-rate pandemic pathogen we drilled for over and over. We lived through SARS and H1N1 at CDC. Collectively we still don't know enough about COVID-19 to estimate R0 or CFR with any accuracy at all. So people should try to be calm, practice good hygiene, maybe lay in some nonperishables in the event they get stuck at home, and be thinking about neighbors who may need help in the event of more widespread infection and disruption. A few good movies to watch can't hurt.
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@MtnGal This writer gets a bunch of stuff wrong, and then there's the not-so-precise descriptions, one of which you highlight: Bryan Cranston plays a Rear Admiral.
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@MtnGal
As a retired commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service, I concur with your assessment of the movie and your recommendations about COVID-19. I would add, however, that for those in their 70s and 80s, the risk is quite high.
As for Scott G.'s reply about the Bryan Cranston character's rank, Grade 08 of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps ranking is Rear Admiral. That same level is Rear Admiral for the Navy and Major General for the Army. Cranston played a USPHS commissioned corps officer, as MtnGal observed.
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I can't believe this - my husband just watched Contagion a few nights ago. I only stayed in the room a couple of minutes to see Gwyneth's death scene! How did everybody else make out by the end of the Movie?
Seriously, I have little faith in this administrations ability to face this threatening challenge with any competence.
Please, everyone take care of your senior family members and friends; and stay away from large, unnecessary gatherings.
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It's ironic that Gwyneth Paltrow has transformed in real life into the character played by Jude Law.
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I find Contagion surprisingly relevant considering its age. The only element missing is a cruise ship. Otherwise, not much has changed in the world. I found it very enlightening and informative when I first saw it in 2011, and learned the basics of contagion spread--fomites, face touching, R factor. It allows me to trust the professionals coping with all the unknowns they're facing right now, and how we need to value and respect our government professionals, in spite of the elected "leaders."
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From a purely academic and epidemiological perspective the last scene tracing the source of the virus from bats to Paltrow was eye-opening and prophetic about the effect we have on the world around us and how the world fights back.
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@CivilianMD but the last last scene is the panned out map of the earth, with the flight paths of planes multiplying until the whole map is covered - it's a map we see often, the dotted lines of the paths of planes over the sky, but man is it absolutely chilling..
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The movie also boasts strong anti-union sentiment, which alas may also be some viewers' idea of a good time
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@Margaret I don't remember a "strong anti-union sentiment." I do remember hearing an audio clip reporting that a nurses' union was refusing to work until anti-infection protocols were in place. Although this seems harsh, the SARS epidemic pointed out that health care workers are not only in great danger of infection, but that they're valuable resources that must not be sacrificed. The union refusal to work was not only eminently reasonable, but in the best public interest. Was there any other "anti-union sentiment"?
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No, No and No. Watching Contagion is always fun. Not only is the high point of the movie Gwyneth Paltrow getting the virus and dying from it. They actually top that part of the film by doing an AUTOPSY on her and removing her brain!! Love it, love it, love it. That made it the "feel good movie of 2011" for me, hands down!
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I am on the wait list for this film from the local library - it seems there are a few of us who want to revisit this film. What I remember most from my first viewing is the ease with which the virus was transmitted - by everyday transactions - and all the smart women who work to figure it out using science and logic. And who have a conscience. As the number of cases of COVID-19 grow and the outbreaks of fear and anxiety develop, I have been waiting for someone to, like the Jude Law character, show up and claim a government conspiracy and assert there is a secret cure that is being denied the public. But it seems Facebook is already providing that.
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Dear B.G.,
Actually Jim Bakker, televangelist, has been selling the fake cure of silver solution (like, you drink silver or something) for the coronavirus. There are plenty of other snake-oil fake cures popping up, but I guess Bakker is the most recognizable similarity to the Jude Law character.
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@B G
You can watch it on YouTube for approx. five dollars or no additional cost on whichever streaming service(s) you have.
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@B G I would do online streaming, as the DVD may be a fomite
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“V-Wars”, new on Netflix, is along the same lines except people who catch it turn into monsters for a time. Apparently it’s caused by a germ (or something) released from Arctic ice due to global warming. Not very good but I want to see how it ends.
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Contagion was ok regarding the actual disease and numbers, which were a bit light. Where it did an excellent job was in portraying the role of epidemiology and health agencies work in response to a new bug. It did a good job touching on societal disruption but didn't address the economic and long term impact. Admittedly that would have been difficult.
If you want to understand a real pandemic, excellent books about the flu pandemic are available: Kolata, Spinney and Crosby for starters. Quammen's "Spillover" discusses zoonotic jumps from animals to humans very well.
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I made it through the first few minutes and then I was like Reality is already bad enough without all of the scary background music too. I find YouTube videos of beautiful gardens more to my liking.
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I checked other sites and found that the death rate in Contagion was 20-30%, an order of magnitude greater than COVID 19. This was briefly reassuring until the movie's death count for the US alone, at some point in the movie where all was chaos, was 2.something million. That puts Contagion right in the middle of our COVID-19 scenario.
If, say, half the US population contracts COVID 19 and the death rate is about 2%, as a lot of data suggests, that's 3.3 million deaths in the US alone. Or say it's 20% infected, which is the high end of our usual flu contagion rate: at 2% mortality, that's 1.3 million deaths.
But of course that's not counting people who become severely ill and recover, yet require hospitalization to get through it. Severe cases in China typically last 2-3 weeks. Data indicates that 81% of people who contract COVID-19 don't require hospitalization, but if 19% do, at a 20% infection rate that's 12.54 million Americans requiring hospitalization for, say, one-to-two weeks. The American Hospital Association reported 36,353,946 people hospitalized last year, with an average of 4.6 days of stay. So 12.54 people staying an average of 8 days is a 60% increase in hospital bed requirements.
Perhaps our streets won't be trash-strewn fear zones ruled by crazed vaccine-seeking gangs. But COVID-19 promises a lot of disruption. Like climate change, an illness doesn't require more than a few degrees of change to up-end a society.
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@Virginia
Sorry but your numbers are way off. Nobody knows the CFR - case fatality rate. That 2% number is the percent of confirmed cases, not total cases. A better way to look at it is that so far about 3000 people in Hubei Province have died out of 60 million people in the province. That is equivalent to 14,000 deaths in the US. Who knows what the US final numbers will be but my bet is it will be much closer to 14,000 than 2 million.
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@Scott Werden
Yes, you're going to be proven right. The highest the mortality rate will be is .05. That's what it was in Korea last I looked with 5,000 documented cases. In Seattle, where I am from, we have only had about 100 documented cases and outside of the 10 fatalities at the one nursing home there have been maybe 6 other deaths. Given a 4 to 6 day incubation period, and the assumption many in Seattle have been infected, we are looking currently at a fatality rate very close to the typical influenza A or B, which has taken about 100 in the state so far this flu season.
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in truth, it isn't a good movie but various scenes stay with one forever even if you watched it only once. What the movie does right: the health workers in the film get sick and die too. We are already seeing that with coronavirus.
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@K Henderson In your opinion, it's not a good movie. A valid opinion, but an opinion nonetheless. I look forward to a day when we stop speaking our opinions as though they are the truth!
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@Curt Hill You are offering that sophism because you dont agree. Which is transparent.
Contagion was eye opening to me when I watched it a few years ago. Kate Winslet’s character never lost her humanity. The scene where she is lying in that bed and the person next too her was suffering and she was reaching out to give that person a blanket, as sick as she was, she saw someone else needed help. Unlike the Jude Law character, a monster that was on the same team with that terrible virus. He was no different than the extreme right wingers, like a Rush Limbaugh. This movie made me think a lot of what is happening today. But it was a nonfiction book that scared the life out of me, The Hot Zone.
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No other book EVER scared me as bad as The Hot Zone. It took me Days to get through that first chapter with the man on the plane. It frightened me to my core. The only good thing about Ebola is that it's such a fast burner that it tends not to travel too far.
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@Martha White As a government employee, I love that scene. It's not very often we get depicted in a good light (unless it's law enforcement or lawyering).
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@ivanogre I listened to The Hot Zone on a cassette in my car, and in that first chapter, I had to pull over because I thought I was going to be sick.
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I've never seen the movie but you don't need fiction to know just how bad epidemics can be.
My parents who grew up before there was a polio vaccine remembered the not infrequent polio epidemics where they could be playing with an apparently healthy child one day and a week later that child was either dead or in an iron leg.
There are still many people alive who lived in fear of polio and even many who had the disease and remember the fear they lived in about whether they would be crippled for life.
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@Steve I was 8 when our doctor's son and a playmate of mine died of polio. It took him about a week. Something you never forget.
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"And the Band Played On"... book by Randy Shilts, also made into a not-bad movie... is an amazing exploration of the politics of disease, in that case AIDS of the 1980's.
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Neither is:
I Am Legend, 12 Monkeys, or 28 Days Later, but they can all teach us something. Be ready.
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From "The Pessimist's Guide to History" - by Stuart and Doris Flexner --
"Mariners returning to Europe in 1346 brough back tales of a deadly plague that left thousands of corpses piles up in cities throughout China and India.
The next year the news came in a more ghastly form, as trading ships sailed into European ports with virtually all their crew dead or dying of the plague.
Tradesmen infected with the bubonic plague spread the disease to Sicily, and from there to North Africa and to southern Italy.
Within months all of Europe was consumed by the plague...
[...]
As the plague spread from country to country, it devastated whole populations. By 1348 millions were dying in England, France, Germany and Austria. ... Half the population of Florence perished within six months.
[...]
All efforts to understand the causes of the plague or stop its spread failed miserably.
[...]
When the plague finally abated in 1351, an estimated twenty-five million people had died in Europe. About one-third of the world's population had succumbed.
No one was spared; not royalty or nobles, church officials or whole friaries, artisans or patrons of the arts...
It was the most devastating disaster ever visited upon the world..."
"The Pessimist's Guide to History: An Irresistible Compendium Of Catastrophes, Barbarities, Massacres And Mayhem From The Big Bang To The New Millennium"
https://www.amazon.com/Pessimists-Guide-History-Irresistible-Catastrophes/dp/006095745X
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Contagion is a great movie, but I think this author got the wrong message. The disease in Contagion is incredibly much worse than covid-19. Far more lethal, insanely more contagious, it is a real world-wide plague on the level of the bubonic plague outbreaks in the Medieval age. There are enough deaths to affect society in a major way, rule of law breaks down a bit.
The message to get from the movie is that this covid-19, basically a variant of the flu, is nothing to worry about at all. People are panicking far too much, and that's causing some irritating phenomena like a run on toilet paper at stores, but rule of law is not disintegrating. Hardly anyone is dying, certainly less than a hundredth of those that die from the flu every year.
So by all means watch Contagion, as it really is a good movie, but just like 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend, and other great apocalyptic movies, it should reassure you that things really aren't that bad. The main thing with covid-19 so far is that the media is going absolutely bananas hyping the heck out of it, and thus lots of people are paranoid and terrified. The reality is, it's not that big a deal, and definitely not the end of the world that everybody seems to secretly desire.
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@Dan Stackhouse Of course COVID has killed as many as the flu. It's just getting started. The hospitalization rate for the flu is about 1%, whereas COVID is 20%. The death rate for the flu is 0.1%, but for COVID it's somewhere between 0.5% and 4%.
COVID is just getting started in the US. This is not the flu.
Our hospitals are not prepared nor sized to deal with what is coming at them in about a month.
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@Dan Stackhouse Of course COVID hasn't killed as many as the flu. It's just getting started.
The hospitalization rate for the flu is about 1%, whereas COVID is 20%. The death rate for the flu is 0.1%, but for COVID it's somewhere between 0.5% and 4%.
COVID is just getting started in the US. This is not the flu.
Our hospitals are not prepared nor sized to deal with what is coming at them in about a month.
12
Seriously, you're calling yourself Covid-20? So fearmongering is apparently your goal, but your numbers are inaccurate. Lots of people do love to swing into mindless panic for no good reason though, so I'm sure you'll do well. Not sure how you'll profit from it, but maybe it's all for the lulz.
I laughed out loud at the line, "classic Damon" and this was a good reminder why I should take a break from all the Corona virus infection updates, breath a little - through a mask, of course ;-) and re-watch Contagion.
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I don’t really see how listing populations of cities portrayed in a film about a highly contagious virus reflects the director’s supposed “OCD.”
Maybe be more mindful of using mental health terms so loosely (and inaccurately) in an article, especially one relating to disease in a cultural climate that is probably exacerbating symptoms for many people who suffer from the aforementioned disorder?
26
We'll definitely get to a 'contagion' virus at some point, but covid 19, while bad, isn't the same as something like ebola, but with the ability to be transmitted like a flu or cold. The main issue concerns overwhelming the medical system and the hallowing out of government. Many will get through it, won't be pretty, it's up there with global warming, nuclear war and AI as existential threats.
9
@Rickibobbi Agree with what you're saying here, covid doesn't seem to be the "Big One", although I do wonder if between the time it dies down (presumably in the summer) and comes back again, (presumably in the fall) it might not mutate to become more "big" than it is currently. I guess we'll see.
8
@John
Yes. The Spanish flu came back the following fall, I believe. This virus could do that and if we overwhelm the medical support system (easily done) then you could see many more fatalities. We are now moving quickly to warmer weather in many parts of the US and that will dampen the impact of Covid-19 this spring.
6
@Rickibobbi
I can’t remember if the stock market took such a big hit during SARS.That is the red flag I look at. If companies are predicting lower earning and massive lay-offs, this is a pretty big deal. What is funny is, I was traveling in Asia for work during the SARS outbreak, had a bad cold and hacking cough, merely had my temperature taken at immigration check points and went about my business never seriously worrying about it at all. And SARS had a higher mortality rate than COVID-19 (at least from what we know so far). There’s just something a bit eery about how quickly this is showing up everywhere.
3
Life imitating art. Typical for our times. This could all be a reality show for all we know, with most of us watching cable news streaming 24/7 from the comfort of our living rooms, a popcorn bucket in hand. The stakes are high and deadly, of course, but most of us will be watching it all unfold on screen, thinking we're safe.
6
Dear Rick Morris,
Actually with covid-19, the stakes aren't high, and we're mostly safe. People who are over 70 and have respiratory conditions aren't safe, but they weren't safe before covid-19 showed up either, because that's a group the flu scythes through every year.
So far, covid-19 deaths are about 4,000. That's less than a hundredth as much as the flu takes down every season, and if you divide it by the population of the world, you get approximately zero.
So please, don't believe the hype, Contagion is about a real, devastating, lethal virus, but covid-19 isn't one.
15
@Dan Stackhouse
Dear Dan,
..I love the optimism. And I would be inclined to that too. But I'm not going on a plane anytime soon, and four thousand deaths? Let's talk in a month's time.
32
"So please, don't believe the hype." Cannot agree. Too soon to know all the facts about mortality rates. We Do know that it is much much worse than flu-type pneumonia if it progresses in a person. Lots of data is missing and/or not collected and there are not remotely enough tests to confirm who actually has corona virus in the first place (which of course affects the data). I dont believe the hype but I also dont see the data to support your point of view.
27
"Pandemic", a recent documentary film on Netflix, is prophetic about what is actually taking place today and how this may end. A must see!
52
@Elmo Harris I started watching that one a few days ago. I also revisited the movie Outbreak, thought back then how far fetched that was but just read what’s happening in New York State.
5
I enjoyed this movie a lot the first time I saw it. I bought it years ago to add to my "simulation" collection of films. Another simulation film I enjoy is "Unstoppable" about a real-life runaway train. "Vantage point" is also excellent.
Now if you want another simulation about an unstoppable disease try "The Andromeda Strain" which was written by Michael Crichton WAAAAY before the HBO Westworld and Jurassic World entered the scene. That one centers on how to isolate and destroy an alien disease rather than it's effect on the populace.
As for the Coronavirus, it's good to be aware, prepared, and maybe even a little scared. Thankfully this is not Spanish Flu territory (yet). We will just have to wait and see how things develop.
Oh, and Contagion was always a movie worth watching. Kind of sad it too a real world outbreak of flu to make people realize that.
27
@Darin I first watched "The Andromeda Strain" not long after it came out, and it made a huge impression on my young self. Recently I thought I'd watch it again, assuming that I'd only been impressed with it since I was a kid and life was simpler then. But it actually holds up quite well, despite the huge leaps in technology we've made.
And if you really want to go all-out on disease apocalypse movies, be sure to watch "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston. The ultimate cheesy virus-induced-zombie apocalypse flick.
11
@Darin vantage point! Yes
2
@Darin I read The Andromeda Strain in high school and thought it was fantastic - right up until the end. It felt like Crichton just ran out of ideas.
1
I watched the movie for the first time over the weekend and thought it got a lot right. I don't think the movie director or screen writer could have anticipated the degree of incompetence of the U.S. President, though. It would have been interesting to see how that would have played out on screen.
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