10 Things Contagion Predicted Perfectly (Or Not) About The Current Pandemic
8. Easy Transmission
What It Gets Right
Of all the predictions that this film was right on the money about, it was the incredibly easy transmission of the virus that the movie absolutely nailed. The movie displays the use of slot machines, rolling the same dice at the casino's gaming tables and touching the same drinking glass as manners of transmission.
Scenes in the movie depicting just how easy the virus can spread, and the resulting casualties that follow feel now to be almost like a documentary. As stated by virologist Michael Osterholm on the Joe Rogan podcast, it is the easy transmission of the disease that what makes Covis-19 such a threat. Osterholm should know, as he was the one who predicted this would occur.
What It Doesn't
While the easy manner of the transmission between the move and reality are close enough to identical, the big difference between the movie and reality is the severity of the illnesses.
As outlined by Osterholm in his book predicting these events and relayed on the Joe Rogan podcast, the nature of an easily transmissible virus means that by its nature, it isn't as potent as other viruses with a higher fatality rate. Thankfully this means that the high fatality rate of the movie's virus won't be as transmissible, which is a massive blessing.