Great film. Very realistic depiction of what would occur if Something like this happened . However bad idea to watch during the Coronavirus outbreak because now I’m freaking out

Not the movie to watch before bed especially with the current news. Oh why did I do this to myself. That being said, I'm buying supplies in case a pandemic happens. Well done film.

It was a thriller movie that came out in September of 2011. Its subject was the outbreak of a deadly virus. The film was titled, “Contagion.” It was very successful at the box office. Steven Soderbergh was its very capable director. In it, a fast-spreading “mystery” virus wiped out tens of millions of people worldwide.

Enter the deadly coronavirus outbreak! Its connections to the disaster film are on the scary side. It was reported weeks ago in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Local scientists there claimed it started, like in the “Contagion” film, from animals and then jumped to humans. To date, 106 people have died in China from the virus and more than 4,500, they claim, have been infected. The disease has been confirmed in 17 other countries, including the U.S. where five people are being treated.

At press time, Januay 29, 2020, 17 cities in China have been shut down encompassing 50 million people, according to news reports, “as the virus continues to spread.” According to the British paper, “The Daily Mail,” a nurse in China has claimed, “90,000 people have been infected.” This story, like so many coming out of China, has yet to be confirmed.

Experts, however, at the MRC Center for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, in London, UK, estimate that more than 100,000 people, not 4,500, were infected worldwide as of the January 26th date. The count depends on “testing,” they insist, and “not everyone is being tested, they underscore.

Wuhan is a city of about 11 million-plus. It is on lockdown! No one in and no one out. Before that quarantine order could be executed, however, about 5 million residents got out of town. The city as of January 28, reported 533 confirmed cases. What makes this virus particularly dangerous is that it has an “incubation period of one to 14 days,” according to news reports.

How big is a city of 11 million-plus souls? Take the population of New York City, 8.5 million; Los Angeles, 3.8 million; and then for good measure add Baltimore, around 620,000 citizens. When you do that, you start to come to grips with the immensity of the current virus problem facing the Chinese government and its health officials.

In the “Contagion” movie, the virus, which hit the U.S. hard, was spread by fomites, such as clothes, utensils, and furniture. The film did a really solid job showing how scientists identified, and eventually, contained the disease.

The virus in the movie, like with the Coronavirus, started in the Far East – the city of Hong Kong. The film also spotlighted the panic that can break out in a society where there is a loss of social order. Citizens are shown fighting desperately for drugs while wrecking a pharmacy that they believe will fix their problem.

Another virus expert, Dr. Howard Markel, of the U. of Michigan, maintains that “to put a ring around the city of the size of Wuhan with its population is unprecedented.” Markel is the author of the book, “Quarantine.” The Center for Disease Control has reported a “total of 110 people in 26 U.S. states are now being evaluated for coronavirus.”

The movie features some of my fave actors: Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kate Winslet. The plot has a lot of twists and turns in it, too. Also in the flick, the disease spreads at a breath-taking pace. By Day 26, the death toll has reached “2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide.” (Wikipedia) All the major health agencies in the U.S. are featured, along with international counterparts.

According to the “Wall Street Journal,” the U.S has sent a plane to Wuhan, China, to evacuate American citizens, “including U.S. diplomats and their families.” The aircraft only has about 230 seats, while “about 1,000 US citizens are believed to live in the central Chinese city.” It was reported on January 29th, that 201 Americans were rescued from Wuhan and landed safely in California. (Daily Mail)

The coronavirus outbreak’s impact on U.S. businesses in China is not known at this point. Festivities for celebrating the Lunar New Year were also canceled in order to be on the safe side. Schools, too, were being closed until late in February. According to the “New York Times,” travel constraints imposed earlier on Wuhan and areas nearby, “have penned in 35 million people…and Beijing has restricted its bus travel.”

In the “Contagion” movie, a vaccine is found after Day 133 of the crisis, and the film soon ends on a happy note. Let’s all hope and pray that the coronavirus crisis comes to a safe and speedy end, too, and that the loss of lives is kept to a minimum.

The filmmaker actually met with people from the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization and asked them, "What is your biggest fear?" This movie is a portrayal of what they are preparing for, but dreading. WAY smarter than any other disease movie you've seen. The filmmaker really gets into all the different players and all the different issues — how to handle Internet charlatans? What would it be like to be quarantined with your family for a year? What are the challenges of disseminating a vaccine once it is discovered — who gets to live, first? But here's the thing, it's also fascinating to watch. So many small stories that tell you something about humans. Spoiler alert: although the movie has nothing to do with politics, the movie can't help but show how our civil servants do important stuff, and that we should give them adequate funding, and that many of them risk their lives to keep our society humming along. We should give them a little respect.

If the Coronvirus has a playbook this movie would be it! Don't watch this movie if your anxiety levels are already high from the current global pandemic! I am warning you now!

The contagion in this movie has a short incubation period and a high morbidity, thus making it a less dangerous virus than the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, that we’re facing currently in Q1 2020. Viruses that kill very quickly don’t get to spread very much, unlike COVID-19. However, like this virus, in Contagion the virus also originates in bats. It seems probable that this is where Ebola comes from also. All this is to say, the movie takes a plausible situation and then tries to understand what happens next from the perspective of public health. As an RN with a public health nurse certification and some experience in the field, I was impressed with the degree to which Contagion strove to be accurate to the process. With somewhat more scientific/healthcare accuracy than most movies/series of this type, this show tries to imagine what would happen if a virus which originates in the animal world, in this case bats, just like COVID-19, jumped through an intermediary species to humans, just as COVID-19 started in bats, went through the intermediary (wild pangolins), and, in a Wuhan live market, jumped to humans. This tv series has a less apocalyptic ending than appears currently to be the 2020 case, based more on the 2002/3 SARS experience, in which a virus with short incubation and rapid morbidity was really stopped by the fact that it was too lethal to infect the world. COVID-19 sadly, is not as lethal, so people can spread it everywhere before results happen. Thus, Contagion is about what would happen if SARS from 2002 were to have gone more global than it did. Good drama, well acted, well written, but a bit Pollyanna in its happy ending. On the other hand, SARS did end almost as rapidly as it began, so this means that Contagion could be accurate for some viruses, but just not for COVID-19. Btw, COVID-19 means COronaVIrus Disease (COVID) 2019. It does not mean the 19th coronavirus, as one fathead radio broadcaster keeps misinforming us all.

Unreality in Contagion - healthcare workers have enough personal protective equipment, unlike the US under Trump, and, the govt in this movie reacts quickly, whereas the Trumpian govt squandered our safe time and has now endangered all of us in the healthcare field as we try to look after patients without sufficient equipment as a result. This movie also assumes a fully responsive government, which is not possible under Trump as he’s defunded the CDC, eliminated our pandemic response team, and eviscerated the Department of Homeland Security. Fortunately though, at least from our current president’s perspective, very wealthy people have been given huge tax benefits under Trump, which really makes up for us all now being at risk, especially those of us in healthcare or first responders.

So many things in this 2011 show are close to the reality we’re living in 2020. Most Americans are not in healthcare and are not currently locked down, as we are here in Northern California (“shelter-in-place”). But, it’s eerie how close to reality this movie gets.

You really have to be a fan of Soderbergh's to enjoy this film because it's done in a unique style typical of his other films. There is no climatic conflict at the end with the hero returning just in time with the antidote to save his girl (i.e. Outbreak). It's a very quiet film overall with several storylines intersecting in unexpected ways. It's also pretty dark at times and much more realistic about what might happen with a virus like this, showing both the good and bad side of people who are put in a horrible position.

The film is simply put, as many have said: terrifyingly realistic. Yes, the film makes you a bit paranoid afterwards, but I'll talk more about the filmmaking. Soderbergh's desire to make a truly gripping yet realistic film about how a pandemic could spread is what makes this film great. It's an example how other films should be made as well. There is no drama better than pure reality, and the truth is often stranger than fiction. Soderbergh truly is a master of drama and he tied it all in so well on both a global and personal level. I think it would've been interesting if the film addressed how other nations (probably) were also developing vaccines for the virus, but that's only a side note and doesn't really affect the movie as a whole.