10 Things Contagion Predicted Perfectly (Or Not) About The Current Pandemic

10. The Origin Of The Virus

What It Gets Right

Contagion finishes with a final montage outlining the events that lead to the virus being created due to cross contamination. The montage displays a bat's regurgitation of a banana being eaten by a pig, leading to a cross contamination that created the virus. The movie then displays the effected pig being transported to a Hotel Kitchen where the transmission ultimately takes place.

As outlined in the Daily Telegraph on 30 March, the cause of the Corona virus is remarkably similar. The article states that 'The source of the coronavirus is believed to be a 'wet market' in Wuhan which sold both dead and live animals including fish and birds.' The article also reveals that bats are believed to be the original hosts, but were unlikely to be sold on the 'wet market'.

In other words, the bats are likely to have been flying by when it contaminated the meat for sale, just as occurs in the movie.

What It Doesn't

The movie actually goes a step further from what we know of our current situation, hypothesising that deforestation was the cause of the bat flying where it shouldn't. While there has been no evidence presented so far indicating this was a reason for the real world outbreak, it hasn't been disproved either.