I recently watched the movie “Contagion” that was released earlier this year. In the box-office, it topped at $22.4 million and took the number one spot on its opening weekend. I have to say, there is definitely something thrilling about movies with scenarios that could “potentially” happen, but how realistic “Contagion” is at depicting what life would be like in a disease pandemic is debatable.
If you have not seen the movie, “Contagion” begins modestly, and realistically enough, with a cough. Gwyneth Paltrow becomes sick on a business trip, and as she makes her trip home from Hong Kong, through a layover in Chicago, and on to Minneapolis, she leaves infectious droplets of the disease on everything she touches.
Now, one thing that is commendable of this film is that the creators went to unprecedented lengths to fact-check their story of the MEV-1 virus – a fictional virus which arises from zoonotic transmission, is highly contagious, and leads to a worldwide pandemic in the movie. The makers ensured as much accuracy as possible for their fictional virus, (which is modeled after the Nipah virus), and the disease spread, by contacting virologists and epidemiologists; However, Hollywood drama trumped much of the reality.
Public domain: Nipah virus, a member of the family Paramyxoviridae.
And so, my general opinion is: while it could happen, it is not going to happen quite like this. This is for a number of reasons:
- The speed with which the disease spreads is highly unlikely. For example, Nipah virus has an incubation period of about four to forty-five days. This means that from the time of infection, there is a four to forty-five day interval until the onset of symptoms. On the other hand, the MEV-1 virus, as shown in the movie, has an incubation period of about four days.
- The apocalyptic picture of deserted streets and mass chaos is not the reality of a pandemic. Even despite some of history’s worst, ordinary life has never come to a complete halt. Take the Spanish flu in 1918 for example: Many millions died, but many more millions were untouched. Rare is the case that every person in the population will be infected. That’s just nature.
- Now, my final issue with the reality of this film is that the speed at which the virus is decoded and a vaccine is produced is, again, highly unlikely. If such were the case, we would probably be living on the moon by now… Okay, maybe not.
Public domain: Home on the Moon
But really, in a matter of months a vaccine is found, approved, and distributed. Considering that there is still no vaccine to Nipah virus, in reality, it would take much longer to find a vaccine for MEV-1, and as the general public, we would not be so hopeful for a cure.
In the end, it is a decent movie. Albeit, it is a decent movie, based on facts and previous cases, which dramatizes some unlikely future possibilities for the sake of Hollywood.
References:
- “Contagion” on IMDb
- A movie review by New York Times’ Abigail Zuge, M.D. is here
- The World Health Organization
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