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When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the spring of 2020, many people watched a nine-year-old film again. “Contagion,” written by Scott Z. Burns, suddenly struck many as remarkably timely. The film is not a disaster spectacle but a sober study of which capabilities a society has when it counts, and which it lacks. That makes it a lesson in Preparation in Peacetime.
A handshake in Macau
Situation
Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns to Minneapolis from a business trip to Hong Kong. She was infected through a handshake in a casino in Macau. She feels ill, has a seizure and dies. Shortly afterward, her son dies as well. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) does not become infected; he is naturally immune. In many places around the world, people fall ill at the same time.
Link to the principle
The emergency comes without warning and at great speed. In the first days, nobody can build anything anymore. Whatever helps now has to be there already.
Agencies that already exist
Situation
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis. She is to trace the contacts of the sick and prepare the local authorities for the situation. The World Health Organization sends Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong to find the origin. Mears becomes infected in the course of her work and dies.
Link to the principle
The agencies have procedures, experts and authority because they were built up in calm times. That is why the work can begin immediately. At the same time, Mears’s death shows the limit: preparation does not protect against every risk; it only makes action possible.
Laboratories and expertise
Situation
The CDC researcher Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) discovers that the virus carries genetic material from bat and pig viruses. It is named MEV-1. The scientist Dr. Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould) is told to destroy his samples, but he secretly continues his research and finds a cell culture in which the virus can be grown. This allows Hextall to develop a vaccine. She tests it on herself.
Link to the principle
Without laboratories, training and research that came into being long before the pandemic, there would be no vaccine at all. And even so, it takes months. What was not built in peacetime cannot be accelerated at will in an emergency.
Where preparation is missing
Situation
Cities are sealed off, and there is panic buying, looting and violence. The blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) spreads the claim that a remedy made from forsythia cures the disease. Pharmacies are overrun. When the vaccine arrives, there is not enough for everyone. The order is decided by a lottery based on birth dates. By then, in the film, 2.5 million people have died in the United States and 26 million worldwide.
Link to the principle
Where no supplies, no production capacity and no trust in reliable information were built up in peacetime, panic and arbitrariness arise in an emergency. The gaps show up not in the laboratories but in supply, communication and distribution.
A film as a drill
Situation
For the screenplay, Scott Z. Burns consulted experts, among them the virologist W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, the epidemiologist Larry Brilliant and the author Laurie Garrett. In March 2020, the film ranked seventh among the most popular films on iTunes. In early February 2021, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on the radio station LBC that the film had not been his most important source. But, he said, it had shown him how important clear priorities are when distributing the vaccine.
Link to the principle
A film can itself be part of preparation. It plays through the emergency while there is still time and makes abstract risks tangible. Preparation often begins with someone imagining what could come.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- Whatever helps in an emergency has to be there beforehand: people, procedures, equipment.
- Invest in capabilities you cannot accelerate in an emergency.
- Think about supply and communication, not just expertise.
- Set distribution rules before scarce goods have to be distributed.
- Play through the emergency while things are calm.
Summary
“Contagion” shows a world that is partly prepared for a pandemic. Agencies, laboratories and experts hold up because they were built up beforehand. Where supplies, capacity and trust are lacking, panic and arbitrariness arise. The film makes visible that Preparation in Peacetime does not prevent suffering but reduces it, and that it can only be afforded in calm times.
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