Contagion (2011)

[GreekGeek]

Curious--who here has recently watched or re-watched this Eerily Prescient Film? I saw it for the first time last night, and was amazed by how it nailed the warnings about "social distancing", the science of pandemics. the inadequate protocols, and the wacky conspiracy theories.At the same time, I was grateful that, as bad as Corona virus can be for many, it isn't as deadly as the fictional virus in the movie. Conspicuously absent was the President--there was an early mention of him being whisked away to an undisclosed location, but nothing else. 

I managed to stay relatively unspoiled for a lot of the plot turns. I knew Gwyneth Paltrow was going to die early on, but I was shocked by the death of 

Spoiler

Kate Winslet.

And there were a few loose ends:

Spoiler

Does Marion Cotillard return to the Chinese village?

What happened to the people who were unlucky enough to have their birthdays late in the vaccine lottery?

 

[ruby24]

I watched it recently too. I saw it when it first came out but not since then. Very prescient.

Although I think one of the oversights in this was whether it was even possible to get this particular disease and recover. It seemed like everyone who got this died, and fast. There wasn't one example of a person getting it and getting over it, was there? Matt Damon doesn't count because he was somehow immune from the start.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

9 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I watched it recently too. I saw it when it first came out but not since then. Very prescient.

Although I think one of the oversights in this was whether it was even possible to get this particular disease and recover. It seemed like everyone who got this died, and fast. There wasn't one example of a person getting it and getting over it, was there? Matt Damon doesn't count because he was somehow immune from the start.

Jennifer Ehle's character, a doctor studying the virus and the possibility of a vaccine, injects herself with an experimental treatment she and a colleague had been testing with monkeys, taking a huge risk because it would take way too long to get a drug approved by the government, despite the crisis. Her father had been infected because he was also a doctor who had been treating patients who had the disease, but once the drug was proven to work he also got the vaccine and recovered. Other than that, I'm not sure anyone else recovered before that.

[SeanC]

On 3/29/2020 at 9:59 PM, ruby24 said:

Matt Damon doesn't count because he was somehow immune from the start.

Natural genetic immunity is not unusual -- for instance, 9 in 10 people are naturally immune to leprosy (despite its reputation as one of the great plagues of ancient times).

Edited March 31, 2020 by SeanC

[jcin617]

People did recover from MEV-1 (the fictional virus) as they mentioned at one point in the movie the mortality rate was between 25-30%.    Based on the numbers that were thrown around over the course of movie, the estimates are the fictional virus killed 25 million people.     The thing with the movie virus, though, is a person infected with MEV-1 typically became symptomatic within 24-48 hours and succumbed to the virus within 4 days.    A nationwide lockdown of a couple weeks would pretty quickly halt a virus that was that fast acting, unless it lived on surfaces for a long time.  

With regards to those whose birthdays were towards the end of the vaccine distribution period - by the time 60% of the population had the vaccine, herd immunity would start to take effect decreasing their chances of catching the virus anyway (and all those who are now immune could starting doing errands, etc. for those still not vaccinated).

Edited April 2, 2020 by jcin617

[Sharpie66]

Pandemic expert compares Contagion to Covid19: 

 

[VCRTracking]

This video is two months old. March seems such a long time ago.