Extra Credit: Contagion

Contagion was a very interesting film. It follows a virus and the epidemic all the way back to its source. It showed many different roles people play in discovering a virus, how it is contracted, what the process is to develop a vaccine for this virus, and much more. This closely relates to our epidemiology content and creates a story to go along with all of the information we learned and put it all together for us. The movie was a timeline and went through the who, when, and where parts of the disease in order to track it back to the source. It also enabled me to better understand the epidemiological triangle; which consists of a host, agent, and environment and how they all go together.  I found it interesting how they decided who should get the vaccine first. I don’t understand why they would draw birthdays randomly versus vaccinating children, women, and elderly first and then men. I also didn’t think that it was ethical to give placebos to the community that was holding the women hostage. I think that was a waste of time and money considering most of them were children and would need the vaccine eventually. This is why I would rate the film a 4 out of 5. I found it unrealistic at sometimes, but then who knows how people would react when such a horrible thing would arise. People went insane, killing others for food and vaccines, breaking into houses, threatening people. I understand they were afraid for their lives and for their family, but I would hope people wouldn’t actually lash out like that. I also would hope that we wouldn’t have such an outbreak with the technology in medicine that we have today.

I have seen this movie in high school, but didn’t completely understand the epidemiological process. Now, with the knowledge from this class and microbiology I can better follow the movie and the process the public health workers have to go through in order to control a virus, the public, and everything else that comes into play.