10 Things Contagion Predicted Perfectly (Or Not) About The Current Pandemic
6. School Gymnasiums As Hospitals
What It Gets Right
The use of gymnasiums and halls as temporary hospitals for the ill is something that the film unfortunately got correct. Footage from Italy of their overrun hospital system leading to a number of citizens ending up in small gymnasiums has proven a real shock to the world.
The real world footage is incredibly similar to the horrifying scene from the movie in which Kate Winslet's Dr. Erin Mears slowly dies in an American gym. The manner in which the stretcher beds full of patients are lined up next to each other is perhaps the scariest parallel between the film and our real world situation judging by the footage from Italy we have seen so far.
What It Doesn't
The biggest difference in our current climate is the adaptability of our governments in adjusting to the lack of hospital beds. Stretcher beds in Gyms was depicted as the norm in the movie, but innovation has been shown in the real world.
The building of Leishenshan Hospital in China in just ten days can be viewed on Youtube, a staggering feat of engineering in such a short time frame. CNN has also reported on the the arrival into New York of a Navy hospital that the mayor reflected was like 'adding a whole new hospital.'