Tuesday
Jan102012
Jan 10 Contagion - Blu-ray Review #13
Soon after her return from a business trip to Hong Kong, Beth Emhoff dies from what is a flu or some other type of infection. Her young son dies later the same day. Her husband Mitch however seems immune. Thus begins the spread of a deadly infection. For doctors and administrators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, several days pass before anyone realizes the extent or gravity of this new infection. They must first identify the type of virus in question and then find a means of combating it, a process that will likely take several months. As the contagion spreads to millions of people worldwide, societal order begins to break down as people panic. Buy Now $24.99
Reader Comments (2)
Rodney and Ara,
As a physician/virologist/vaccinologist, I certainly enjoyed Contagion. It was more like a day at the office or a documentary of what might be rather than the blockbuster you might expect given the cast.
Here’s my take on Contagion (sorry if it is a little technical in places).
The low-key acting was convincing based on my interactions with CDC staff, especially Kate Winslet as the EIS officer (Epidemiology Intelligence Service) and Jennifer Ehle as the CDC virologist. Many locations were authentic (e.g., external areas and main public areas of the CDC, Atlanta and WHO, Geneva) and even the CDC Emergency Operation Center looked as I remember it as well as the new BSL-4 suites at CDC which I toured just before they became operational (obviously, they did not shoot in hot BSL-4 suites).
As you note, the real star was the virus which was not an influenza virus. They called it “MEV-1” which I am guessing means “Macau Encephalitis Virus”. This theoretical movie virus seems to be based on a genetic recombination of Nipah virus (a bat paramyxovirus with 30-40% mortality in rare humans cases due to encephalitis [inflammation of the brain]) with some sort of “cold virus” allowing easy and fast transmission through the air (coughing or even just speaking) and touching shared objects like elevator buttons (fomites). The incubation period is very fast (like cold viruses) taking 24-48 hour to get sick once exposed. One computer screen in the movie suggested this second virus making up the new chimeric virus to be porcine rubulavirus which is closely related to human parainfluenza viruses PIV-2 and PIV-4 which do cause colds. So the virus is plausible being a recombination of two paramyxoviruses. I was working in Southeast Asia when the Nipah virus was identified and recall a gruesome video of pigs suffering Nipah encephalitis. We did some testing at my lab to show it was not caused by another encephalitis virus, Japanese encephalitis virus.
The science is pretty good. I might disagree with a few technical details (e.g., how can they tell Matt Damon he is immune on Day 12 of the epidemic (not enough time to develop an antibody assay especially when they had trouble to grow the virus to generate needed antigen though I suppose they could have generated recombinant proteins). Also, estimating 8 million infected on Day 12 is too fast; they need to recheck the math if each person infects two more or, later, 4 more. Finally, Laurence Fishburne said 1% of people died in 1918 due to flu though 50 million died at a time when the global population was 2 billion; that would be 2.5% and experts suggest maybe 100 million dead (5%) to be more accurate. So, it has happened before.
The crazy on the internet (Jude Law) turned out to be a bad guy for a change. The “establishment” in this movie (CDC, WHO, DoD, DHS, drug companies) looked pretty good except the Minnesota Department of Health. Their apparent ignorance allowed scientific points (such as R0) to be explained to the movie viewer (the Minnesota DoH is one of the best in the country and certainly do not need instruction on “fomites” and R0). The timings for developing vaccines were optimistically realistic (4 or 5 months to the availability of the first dose with a year needed to vaccinate everyone who wants it). Vaccine companies I know increased security at their manufacturing facilities after the emergence H5N1 (bird flu) starting in 2003 in case of enthusiastic public demand for vaccine.
All in all, good motivation to get ready for the next pandemic and here I’m thinking more in terms of vaccine development than purchasing firearms.
Great movie, I agree with David the low-key acting added a sense of realism and desperation to the events. David your info above should be an extra feature on the Blu-ray! Very cool - thanks for posting it.