Film Imitating Life,

or is it life imitating film?

when Tracey McNamara was a veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo, she was part of the team that discovered West Nile Virus. Later, she was tapped as a science advisor for the 2011 movie Contagion, 

“The movie really rang true, and now that we’re dealing with coronavirus, it really captured when you're dealing with something unknown,” McNamara said. “Just like with the West Nile virus, you're going to hear a lot of people making all sorts of proclamations and announcements, and whenever someone says something about a brand-new, previously unknown virus, I think, You should choose your words carefully. You may have to eat them.”

the realism in Contagion is why so many people are seeking out and re-watching the movie now. Read more of what McNamara has to say at Buzzfeed, as it happens we have watched the film, and enjoyable, if that is the right word, it was too, and now for a different view, from the Atlantic’s Karl Taro Greenfeld who states that the pattern that an epidemic follows are denial, panic, fear, and rational response: 

If you want to panic, go right ahead. It’s what we do. It’s what your ancestors did. Then be afraid. Eventually, however, roll up your sleeves and get to work, scrubbing this bug back to whatever its host species happens to be. We’ll get there. Humanity has so far survived every microbe that has jumped the species barrier, and we will survive this one.

so that's alright then!