Reflecting on this movie seems very scary and a little too real. The film contagion parallels the world we are living in right now. Never did I think we would be living in quarantine for this long, or at all. It is important to not take things for granted, and to appreciate the world while we have it. Looking back and reflecting on this film is a very real wake up call. Like we saw in the movie, viruses move fast and don’t discriminate! I hope everyone is staying safe and checking on their loved ones!

I had the opportunity to go to Rose Scholar’s viewing of Contagion. The movie is about how planet earth is plunged into a global pandemic as the result of a virus…. sound familiar? When I want to watch the movie the coronavirus pandemic in real life was just beginning to start to get bad. People were just realizing how serious the issue was, and how serious it was going to become. I remember while watching Contagion there were many times where I felt nervous and started to wonder if something like that could ever happen, surely the movie was pure fiction. Now looking back and comparing that movie to what is currently happening in places like NYC, I am amazed by some of the parallels. I can only wonder how my other Rose Scholars members were thinking about the movie while they watched. I had the opportunity to talk with a few of my peers following the movie, and many of us were worried about how the depiction we just saw may become a reality.

Many say this movie is a prophecy of the COVID-19 that’s going on, there are too many similarities that made me think and reflect on our real-world. One thing that drew my attention is the role/power of media. The blogger Alan played by Jude Law is quite a significant character. His sensitivity to the case early on has set him as an authority figure. Many people believed whatever he said — which endowed him a surprising amount of power. From a god’s eye view, we know that he is lying his a*s off and accusing the government officials to be the liers. We know that Dr. Cheever did tell his wife to evacuate the city early, but otherwise, he has been acting in the best interest of the society and knows what he’s talking about. Nonetheless, it only took Alan a few minutes to totally ruin Dr. Cheever’s image and public credibility. It is easy to tell on a screen because you can just keep watching and you’ll have perfect information, it’s a million times harder in real life to know what’s the actual story. People can be telling the truth 100% and still completely distort the whole story. How do we even know who and what to believe? I don’t have an answer for you, all I can tell you is to stay vigilant and beware of this possibility. I will attach another picture to remind you how easily our view can be distorted.

Another point of this movie is that karma is real. The movie started off on day 2, when patient 0, Beth Emhoff was found sick. She died soon and so did her son. Having it start from day 2 and skip day 1 naturally plants a seed in the audience’s heart: what happened on day 1? Why is Emhoff sick? The answer is not revealed until the very end — a pig ate a banana contaminated by a bat and the virus came from there. And when the chef dealt with the pig, he passed on the virus to Emhoff. Why did the bat come in contact with the pig in the first place? Because the company Emhoff works for chopped down the tree that the bat is originally resting on and the bat had to find a new home. It is sarcastic how the company she works for is indirectly but unavoidably responsible for her death. On a higher level though, it could be interpreted as the environmental damage human cause will eventually come back to haunt us. We have to respect nature, and we have to do it now.

This week I attended movie night where we watched Contagion. It is a movie about a virus that breaks out and spreads across America. The showed the struggles that arose among all faces of civilization. They ranged from those experienced by government officials to those experienced by smaller families. This film made me slightly more paranoid in regards to the spread of coronavirus because it was a virus that was easily transmitted through contact with other people. It also made me more scared because it started off as a virus that was only experienced by a small number of people, but quickly spread to most of the world. One of the main things that gave me hope was the fact that there was a vaccine developed, in the end, that was eventually distributed to everyone. It surprised me when civilians became violent and desperate enough to steal from supermarkets. I am hoping that our situation does not end up being this extreme.

This movie was perfectly aligned with the global pandemic concurrently happening. I always heard good things from this movie and I was definitely more engaged because of the times. This movie was screened in the beginning of the crisis and although it is fiction, we can learn deeper lessons from the film.

The main lesson I definitely got from this movie is how essential health organizations are in the event of a major crisis. Seeing how these organizations and doctors work together to try to help really aligns with what really doctors do. Even now at the peak of the Coronavirus Pandemic, there are healthcare professionals putting there life on the line and that is something very well portrayed in the film.

Earlier this semester I went to see the showing of Contagion. I had seen this movie previously and had really liked it, so I decided to see it again. I did not think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect, its similarities, although less dramatic, to the current real world situation are staggering. It is scary to think that we are living through a movie like experience, an experience that our children will read about in history books, an experience that we surely wont forget anytime soon. We are experiencing a complete and drastic change in our society as a whole.

I simply wanted to take this post to reflect on the current situation and encourage others to share their feelings as well. Currently, I am grateful to be safely quarantined at home and i continue to maintain social distancing. I am disappointed and sad that my time at Cornell this semester has been cut short, but I feel worse for our seniors, who had their final year cut short. All in all, I am grateful for my situation, knowing that some people do not have the ability to go home in this difficult time. I hope everyone can stay safe and I can’t wait to get back to Ithaca!

Watching Contagion (2011), I was impressed by the range of Steven Soderbergh’s directing abilities, considering the fact he also helmed the wildly-different Ocean’s trilogy of heist films.  More importantly, as a student majoring in biological sciences and currently studying microbiology, I appreciated the film’s scientific accuracy.  I came into this screening fully prepared to deal with another highly-fictionalised Hollywood blockbuster, but the fact that Soderbergh paid so much attention to many details of the imagined virus and its epidemiology—down to the digital depiction of protein structure—impressed me greatly.  Especially given all the unanswered questions regarding the novel coronavirus currently sweeping the world, it was very interesting and informing to see how the pandemic could potentially strain systems beyond just healthcare.  For example, it had never before occurred to me that viruses like MEV-1 (from the film) or SARS-CoV-2 (real-life) could such widespread negative effects on crime rate and education.  Contagion also caused me to consider the bureaucratic and administrative challenges required to control such a crisis in a way that is transparent yet not panic-inducing to the public.  Despite the film’s dark subject, however, the small amount of light-hearted humour was refreshing, particularly the scene where the CDC lab workers casually and nonchalantly discussed their Thanksgiving plans while working with samples from deceased MEV-1 patients.  Overall, I enjoyed Contagion very much and highly recommend it to everyone who has not already watched it now that we are all practising social distancing.

Now looking back at the movie Contagion, the plot of the movie is eerily similar to the current events that we are experiencing as the Corona virus spreads. In the film, there was a rise in deceit and selfishness among the human population. This can be seen in real life as well. In certain states, many people have begun to hoard essential items like cereal and milk. This leaves many people without these essentials, because some people decide to be greedy. While watching the movie, I didn’t take what was happening in the movie seriously because I didn’t feel like real life would get as bad as the movie. To see some of the events from the movie happen in real life, has made me scared for the future months. To avoid the spread of the Corona virus, I will be practicing social distance and making sure to maintain my personal hygiene. 

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the film Contagion,  staring Mat Damon and Gweneth Paltrow. This past month has been perhaps the most timely time ever (to make a mild exaggeration) to watch this film, with worries rising concerning the Coronavius. In particular, the film not only proposes how easily a disease could become a worldwide epidemic given today’s vastly interconnected world, but it also raises important questions concerning how society will react to such a disease. Sadly, recent events have shown these questions are far from hypothetical. The film depicts a large rise of distrust and selfishness in the wake of the initial outbreak, even by well-intentioned and good people such as Matt Damon’s character, who only wishes to protect his only surviving family member. This all eerily mirrors recent rises in racism, fueled partially by the Coronavirus’s origin in China. As the virus spreads, it sadly seems possible that these sentiments will only continue to rise alongside peoples’ fear and misunderstanding. Yet, the movie also depicts acts of extreme selflessness and heroism in many of characters (including Matt Damon’s), which gives hope for the response to the current situation. With any luck, human kindness and community will win out, and the Coronavirus will be known only as a devastating pathogen, and not as a social divisor as well.

From the movie, the main takeaways I got from it were the reality of the food industry and the importance of cleanliness. The origin of the highly lethal virus was from a chef’s hand after he was handling a dead pig, that ingested bat feces. This movie made me reconsider what exactly I am putting into my body and how effective my measures are during flu season. If the food industry had better systems in place that could ensure wholesome food being bought my consumers, then the deadly virus would not have come about. Also, if the chef would have thoroughly washed his hands instead of simply wiping them onto his apron, the virus would also not have existed. With these two proposals of how the virus could have been avoided, I have had second thoughts about how cautious I have to be during the current flu season. Washing your hands more frequently and avoiding touching my mouth and face less frequently are two things I have been more wary of. Also, since the ingestion of pork is true, I’ve been limiting my pork intake.

Last week’s movie, Contagion, describes the global outbreak of a virus and the events that followed. The film focuses on various aspects of the viral outbreak, such as the origin of the virus, proliferation of fake news, response by health organizations, and quarantine of cities. There are some really uncanny parallels between the film and the current coronavirus outbreak, and I think the film, which was released in 2011, was a really good choice as our Friday Film. The film did a really great job of leaving the source of the virus for the last scene, so that when the story was over, the audience was still wondering how the virus got its start. Similar to the coronavirus, Cantagion’s fictional virus began when a bat came in contact with pigs, which then was slaughtered and then prepped for a banquet. During the banquet, the chef came into contact with the first patient, which then spread around the world. Similar to today’s events, the coronavirus most likely originated from an animal from a market in Wuhan. In addition to this similarity, I thought that it was interesting how fast fear could propagate through false reporting. A reporter fakes having the virus and claims to cure himself through a homeopathic drug called forsythia, because he stands to profit from it. He also garners mistrust of government agencies, who are actively working to provide a vaccine. Because of his blog’s large audience, he is able to influence people all around the country, and even internationally. I thought that this aspect of the pandemic was very realistic and relevant to today’s situation. It shows just how easy it is to spread fear and false information to an already fearful and paranoid audience, which can be deadly during a viral outbreak. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, both for its relevance to today’s events and how well they portrayed various aspects of an outbreak, such as governmental response, public reaction, the scientific aspects of the virus, etc.

The movie this week was Contagion, very fitting given the current circumstances that we are faced with the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

Though the movie highlighted the worst-case scenario, in which the virus that was circulating had a short incubation period, mutated quickly,  spreads easily, and was extremely deadly, the parallels between the movie scenario and real-life are nevertheless still present. I think that the movie does a good job at highlight cross-contamination and unsanitary practices (be it raising livestock, preparing food, serving food, etc), that can contribute to the rise and spread of novel viruses and other pathogens. Also, given that the world we live in is becoming more interconnected, the spread of the virus that was highlighted in the movie is a scenario that can occur in real life. People can travel across the world in the span of a day, there are large cities with dense populations, and more, all of which can facilitate the spread of a virus and lead to an outbreak that can be hard to control. 

I think that one of my favorite plotline of the movie was the focus on the efforts of the CDC, WHO, and other organizations around the world to identify and develop a vaccine for the virus. I admired the depiction of the healthcare workers, scientists, doctors, etc who were working at the epicenters of the outbreak to discover the origin of the virus, help those who were sick, and work towards a vaccine for the virus. Even though there is a personal risk to these people, they nevertheless served their duty and helped in any way that was possible. 

On the other hand, one of my least favorite characters was Krumwiede, the conspiracy theorist. Through his online blog/website, he continuously spread conspiracy theories about the disease, about how a cure was intentionally delayed, and peddled a fake cure. All of his actions just contributed to the mass hysteria associated with the disease, and his constant denial of his actions and its negative consequences was another aspect of his character that I did not like. However, I again think that the movie depicts his character in a faithful manner. With the initial lack of information regarding the disease and lack of progress, it is easy to gravitate towards those who offer the “answer” or a sufficient explanation, and in the case of the movie, Krumwiede was the one who offered the answer and a “cure.”

Overall, I really enjoyed watching Contagion. I don’t think that a virus as deadly as the one depicted in Contagion is going to arise, but, if one does, it really raises the question of what our response to such a virus will be, and whether society will turn into one similar to that depicted in Contagion. 

I joined the Rose Scholars last night to watch “Contagion,” a movie that offered a terrifying perspective on how quickly fear and panic can spread in a world affected by a widespread virus.
In the film, there were eerie parallels to the current circumstances we are facing with the novel Coronavirus. I believe the movie was meant to mirror the situation surrounding the SARS outbreak, but it particularly potent in today’s health climate.
In a world that is so connected and so interwoven, it is difficult to combat a disease that spreads through contact and through respiration. People are constantly traveling from one country to another, on business or to see family or go on vacation. We are constantly touching our faces, the things around us, our friends, our family, bumping into people. We are surrounded by people on the bus and on the train, on the sidewalk and in the library. There are so many opportunities for a virus to spread.
It makes me think that we as humans, despite being separated by oceans and rivers and thousands of miles, are still so connected, which normally is a good thing, but in the case of disease is deadly.
I hope and pray that the human race never sees anything as bad as the fear they faced in this movie. It was a very scary commentary that even humanity, with all its ingenuity, is not immortal. Happy Valentine’s Day everybody.

This week’s Friday night movie was Contagion.  With the Coronavirus in the news every day, this movie was definitely on point.   This 2011 movie is centered around a mysterious virus that started in China and spread to the rest of the world.   A vaccine for the highly contagious virus could not be developed quickly so millions of people around the world died before the vaccine could be developed.  At the end, the movie showed that the virus started when a pig ate a piece of banana that had been first bitten by a bat.   The pig then had a baby pig, and the baby pig was sold and butchered at a restaurant.  The chef got the pigs blood of his hands, and passed it to a women from Minnesota.  That women passed  it to others before bringing the virus to America.  Those people then passed the virus onto others and so on.  It is really scary to think this is actually happening right now with the coronavirus.   Are situations like this even preventable?  Is it going to be the new normal?  In the movie millions of people died, and entire cities were devastated.  The movie makes you wonder if such a catastrophic virus may be inevitable for the world.

Yesterday I watched Contagion, a 2011 movie featuring stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon. The plot follows the sequence of events from when a new virus mutated to when millions have died and the world is in chaos. It was frightening to see how society collapses and riots/fires break out as soon as the fear becomes real. Instead of responsibly maintaining hygiene and limiting human-contact, people began breaking into stores and homes which made the spread of disease even faster.  The death rate of the virus was around 20% with a r-naught value of 4. R-naught is how many people one infected person is likely to transmit the illness to, and the value is a measure of how quickly the disease spreads. The scariest part of the virus in the movie was that it mutated and spread in a series of chance events. The origin of the virus was relatively benign and was carried by bats in China. The bat dropped some half-eaten fruit into a pigpen, where the virus recombined with a pig virus. Then the pig being prepared in a kitchen of a Hong Kong casino by a chef. The chef didn’t wash his hands, and while posing for a picture with Gwyneth Paltrow’s character he passed the recombined virus onto her. She brought the virus back to the US, and within a month, millions died.

I see a lot of similarities between the Contagion movie and the Coronavirus outbreak going on right now. I feel like the movie was chosen to be an event because of the relevance to current news. Both viruses started in China, and like in the movie, coronavirus is also thought to have originated zoologically, from people eating wild animals. There are also differences between the movie and the coronavirus. The movie virus was a lot more virulent, fast-multiplying, with a much higher death rate (~20%). On the other hand, coronavirus has a mortality rate of less than 2%, the onset of symptoms takes longer, and the virus can spread during the incubation period. It is shocking how big of an impact fear of contagion can have on society and the economy. This was the case in the movie but is also happening with coronavirus. I hear a lot about how areas in China are currently like ghost towns, and how many businesses are suffering because people are not going outside their homes. Meanwhile, I’ve heard how general fear of coronavirus has led many Chinese Americans to feel as though they are being treated differently. I think in fearful times there is a tendency to forget that we are all victims to the same situation; we should focus on remaining rational about relative risks.

One scary message from the movie is that virus outbreaks are merely a matter of probability — it can’t really be avoided 100%, and it can happen at any time. The Black Plague and the Spanish Flu were also extremely deadly examples of this. The coronavirus is definitely scary, but I think that a second Black Plague is very unlikely given modern advancements in medicine and communication, which allows us to respond quickly to outbreaks. I have faith in the medical advancements of our time, as well as in the cautionary measures being taken.