Contagion Movie and Cast
Contagion is relased in 2011 which is an American medical thriller film well directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Contagion Movie CAST
Its ensemble cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan and Marion Cotillard.
Contagion Movie Facts
The plot relates to the spread of a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread that the virus will likely becoming an endemic disease. To allow many interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative "hyperlink cinema" style, popularized in several of Soderbergh's films.
"Interesting because Fact-Checking 'Contagion' — In Wake Of Coronavirus, The 2011 Movie Is Trending during this Pandemic time.
Contagion allows the “outbreak narrative” through which Americans now manage their confrontation with emerging infectious diseases. Beautifully laid out in Priscilla Wald’s recent book Contagious, the outbreak narrative features standard characters and tropes. Among the characters are the human carrier (a woman returning to the United States from a business trip to East Asia), the people she infects (an old boyfriend, her young son), the medical experts who reconstruct the microbe’s route (epidemiologists at the CDC and WHO), the bench scientist who develops a vaccine, and the charlatan hawking a useless homeopathic remedy. The movie also contains familiar tropes: the virus comes to the United States from somewhere foreign and dirty (East Asia); the human carrier is depraved (she acquires the virus while gambling and drinking abroad, then spreads it while having an adulterous layover on her way home); her depravity leads to the death of the innocent (her young son, followed by other millions); magic bullets produced in high-tech laboratories are the best response to an emerging pandemic; and medical experts are heroes who risk their lives to protect public health while the sellers of secret nostrums are cynical opportunists who threaten it.
Contagion Movie Reviews and Feedback
Who were the vulnerable populations in the movie? Discuss how each group was impacted by their lack of resources.
Apparently every human being on the planet is vulnerable for the disease. Unless there is follow-up of precautions for curtailing the spread of the virus and refraining of self from getting infected, as such there is nothing that can protect the individual or the community from getting vulnerable. In any case those who directly come into the contact with the carrier agents like the rabbit bat or any other carrier, those who touch the same table top or the door knob which the infected person touches or alternatively the person so comes into the contact with the nose or the mouth of the person will become vulnerable. Some of the vulnerable populations depicted include the air travellers with an infected person. Lack of resources that contributed to the spread include ignorance that virus can be prevented using mask, letting the person isolated and so forth, escalated the situation and made them vulnerable(Dahiya,2020).
Other group of vulnerability are the medical population, who are likely to get the disease due to the spread of the virus from the infectious people from diverse ways. For instance, Dr.Erin Mears caught the virus through contaminated objects inspite of containment. This is mainly due to the lack of knowledge and resources for total sterilization of tools and items that are likely to catch infection.
Define isolation and quarantine. Discuss the instances of each seen in the movie.
Isolation is all about separating the sick person from the rest of the people with an objective to restrict the possible spread of the disease to other people. Quarantine is normally employed on the people who are exposed to an sick person or came into the proximity of getting infected with the disease. The people will be restricted of their movements from other people and will be provided with separated occupancy. Quarantine will continue for certain duration of the time, which normally will depend on the incubation time of the infected virus and the possible time it will take for showing the symptoms. Quarantine will be employed on the people, when it is not clear whether they contracted the disease or not. Quarantine of people from Air-Atlantic seen in the early parts of movie.
Define the four phases of disaster response. Describe the interventions implemented or discussed in each phase.
Mitigation - The first phase of the disaster is mitigation, the phase is characterized by the ways and means through which the effects of the disaster will be minimized. This phase is characterized by restricting the people movement, quarantining, isolation etc. Restricting the spread by all means that includes lock down etc, makes up this phase.
Preparedness - This is the phase in which the planning will be taken care about how to respond further for facing the challenge and consequences. Availing the hospitals with necessary provisions for air breathing, bedding and other possible life saving measures, deploying staff, preparing populations for taking precautions etc makes up this phase.
Response - This is an execution phase where in the hazards created by the disaster will be minimized. Actual phase where the service will be done to the diseased with all the protocols in place, serving the infected while protecting others and execution of all the cautions installed makes up this phase of the action. Vaccination and making people fit for the challenge.
Recovery - This phase is about bringing the community back to the normalcy. People will be ensured safe and returned back to normalcy with all preparation for the challenges (Ebrahim et al.,2019).
Define pandemic. Does the scenario in the movie qualify as a pandemic - explain your answer.
Pandemic is basically an epidemic that will be occurring for large cross section of people over a wide area. This will even include international borders as well. The key aspect of the disease is that it has to happen in large number of the people over a wide area. The current movie Contagion depicts a pandemic no doubt in that. As it is spread across the borders and brought the system to its knees and so is a pandemic (Roser et al.,2020).
In this film, the people from the Chinese village took the law into their own hands in their attempts to survive. Discuss the ethical and legal implications of their actions.
Chinese village people have taken law into their own hands. The situation can be understood and there is rationale for their attempts as they are for survival. However taking laws into hand at any type of conditions is not allowed as per the legal provisions and it is subjected to the legal prosecution attracting penal sanctions. However from ethical perspectives, the situation needs to be seen and analyzed from different view.
One of the characters gave a female relative advance notice to leave a town infected with the virus. Discuss the ethical and legal dilemmas posed by this action. Include thoughts of how you might respond in a similar situation.
From ethical perspective it is allowed, as the said actions for letting the female move from the village can be a life saving measure. If she is not infected yet, the move can help her to protect herself from getting infected. This way her life is saved. At the same time without actually checking her condition as well as her infection status, if she is sent away from the village, it can have serious consequences as it can impact other people who can come into contact with her. The right move is to quarantine her and to be allowed for free movement only after she is proven free of any contract of infection. So the right decision will be to let her move out but only after informing the authorities and only after informing the concerned people to take up the necessary provisions of quarantine and related measures of observation.
Discuss your thoughts of the nurse strike. Discuss the ethical and legal issues associated with the strike.
There are certain professions that cannot be allowed for strike. Emergency services like security and health care departments cannot and should not be allowed for move on strike, that too in such emergency situation. There can be strike on non-emergency situations where in the union or the association can inform the concerned organization (employer) or the government of the strike in advance notice. This way can execute their responsibility in letting the employer to take care of themselves. However the move is not allowed without any warning. It is unethical and illegal as well. Since as per legal provisions, emergency services are not allowed for strike and only those individuals who are ready and accepting such condition will be allowed for jointing the service. So nursing strike is definitely an unethical and illegal aspect. However it is moral and legal responsibility of the employer (government) to provide the resources and the security as per the situation demands, as it is their obligation to protect the lives of the nurses.
Who should get the vaccine first in a pandemic situation like the one in the movie? Discuss the effectiveness and fairness of the process used in the movie.
The first phase of vaccination should be done to the frontline health workers working for the disease control. It has to be on the doctors, nurses and other staff who are working to save the lives of the infected. Further it has to be given to all the residents of the nursing health care and support staff working in the health care organizations (Crewe,2020).
Subsequently, it needs to be provided to those people who are working for the essential support services in this context. This will include people like politicians, logistics people and other support staff who are working on field to enable the protection services.
Of course, all other people like healthy people residing at homes as well as the elderly people need to be provided with the vaccination in the subsequent phases of the treatment process.
The ultimate objective of the vaccination is not only to protect the individual rather it is also contained in restricting the spread from the person to others. Hence vaccinating such high risk people is not only protecting them but also safeguarding other people, hence it is a justified and fair to do the vaccination in the said manner. MEV-1 vaccine is shown developed and distributed across the world in the movie. Well it is fair and effective. However does not look very realistic from the perspectives it was made in very short time and not digging into the realities of possible massive distribution of virus.