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

What It Gets Right

The global nature of the pandemic is one aspect that Soderbergh really nails in the movie. Contagion shows how one American on a business trip quickly passes on the infection to several people, but it is her stopover in Chicago to meet her lover that causes the pandemic to spread rapidly.

While the US is depicted as the most effected, the movie is accurate in depicting its reach on all corners of the globe. China and the US are ravaged in the film, but it's strongly inferred that no part of the world is spared. The final fatality rates also seem to be scarily similar to the worst case predictions for our current situation, with the film depicting 2.5 million deaths worldwide and 25 million worldwide.

The mathematic modelling used in the movie proves an amazing insight to what is occurring as we speak in reality. American physician Dr. Fauci has been producing numbers that are scarily similar in daily press briefings, predicting a worst case scenario for the US of 2 million deaths without effective management.

What It Doesn't

The one crucial difference from the global pandemic to the movie is that children are far less susceptible than adults. As reported by Anjana Ajuha of Financial Times, scientists are trying to work out just why the coronavirus has less impact on children. The article notes that of the 700 15 years old with the virus in Wuhan, 'none needed respiratory support or intensive care'.