DESMA 9 E3

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 Event Blog 3: Contagion


For this event blog, I will be discussing the (now all too relatable) film Contagion. It follows the spread of an infectious and deadly virus, and how the world dealt with it. It’s eerily similar to what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic, from its bat origin to the conspiracy theorists who think it’s all a hoax, to its method of spreading, to the general government response/strategy. However, I will not focus on the ties between this movie and the COVID-19 world. Anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for the past year and two months can see how they’re connected. And those off the grid. And the Amish. Anyway, I’d like to discuss the medical accuracy/plausibility of the movie. 


  

              Bat eats food             Bat drops food into pigpen                            Pig eats food



        

                             Cook handles pig                    Cook wipes hands, no wash    Cook touches woman


So first off, the virus itself. It was formed because a bat dropped partially eaten food into a pig pen, and the pig ate it. The pig’s throat was then touched by a chef, and the chef touched a lady’s hands without washing his hands. While that long chain of events might not seem realistic, it’s more possible than you think, though for an actual virus, we probably would not be able to trace its origin that specifically. We would know its general route, and kind of how it was created, but it’s hard to get such a high level of detail in such certain terms, as everything would be more in the hypothesis/theory realm than in the fact realm. It is more infectious than COVID-19, and its mortality rate is higher.




Second, let’s discuss the vaccine. According to medical professionals, the time frame is unrealistic because the virus is totally new, but they got the process right. The writers could have had a miracle scientist get the vaccine right on the first try, but in the movie, they show that their first animal tests all died. The scientist who injected herself sound like a purely cinematic choice, but it may be a not so subtle nod to the Nobel Peace prize winner Barry Marshall, who consumed Heliobacter pylori to prove his research. Risky? Yes. Whether it was brave or stupid is up to you. So while this movie cannot be fully accurate, partly for artistic reasons, it’s not completely ridiculous. It is considered almost a worst case scenario, but we definitely should’ve learned from it and been able to avoid the insanely large group of COVID-19 deniers and microchip conspiracies that anyone with three brain cells would be able to see are absolute bull. We should’ve learned. Then again, I’m not sure that crowd is keen on learning science, as many “don’t believe in it”.









References:


“Barry J. Marshall.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Barry-J-Marshall. 


“'Contagion': CDC Experts Weigh In on the Film's Medical Accuracy: Celebrity-Hub.” Celebrity, 23 Mar. 2020, celebrity-hub.com/tv-movies/contagion-cdc-experts-weigh-in-on-the-films-medical-accuracy/. 


Dibdin, Emma. “How Accurate Is 'Contagion'? 3 Experts Break Down The 2011 Film.” Bustle, Bustle, 12 Mar. 2020, www.bustle.com/p/how-accurate-is-contagion-3-experts-break-down-the-2011-film-22618201. 


Kritz, Fran. “Fact-Checking 'Contagion' - In Wake Of Coronavirus, The 2011 Movie Is Trending.” NPR, NPR, 16 Feb. 2020, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/16/802704825/fact-checking-contagion-in-wake-of-coronavirus-the-2011-movie-is-trending. 


Contagion. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, performances by  Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, and Sanaa Lathan, Warner Bros Pictures, 2011


Barry Marshall. https://sciencecue.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Barry-Marshall.jpg Image. 


Virus conspiracy theorist. https://www.chronicle.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/04/A-scene-from-the-movie-Contagion-680x349.jpg Image.


All other images were screenshots from the movie, and the red circles to show the food’s location were drawn in after


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