This
week we watched the movie Contagion, which was about an outbreak of a new,
deadly virus transmitted by the touch of someone who is infected. The movie
begins focusing on a few people who were the original contractors of the virus
and it proceeds to follow the spread of the disease around the world. As more
clusters of the virus pop up around the world the CDC begins to trace its
origins and attempt to create a vaccination as well as keep the public informed
and secure. However, the mass panic caused by the disease and rising death
rates proves difficult to deal with and extreme sanctions are put on the
population to keep those not infected safe. I have never seen this movie before
but I do think it was easier to understand certain concepts in the plot of the
movie as a result of taking a public health class.
When
there is a disease outbreak are generally multiple clusters in different
regions due to the incubation period of the virus. When someone is initially
infected they will not immediately begin to feel symptoms and will therefore
continue with their lives, possibly infecting others. This allows the virus to
spread without being detected. As a result of this public health professionals
with launch an outbreak investigation in an attempt to trace the disease to its
origin so they can learn as much as possible about it and help create a
vaccine. Contagion features a particularly deadly disease and in the movie
those believed to be infected are isolated from the general population to
prevent further transmission of the virus. Similarly, areas where higher
percentages of the population are infected become quarantined in order to
provide a secondary defense to stop the spread of the disease.
While
the movie was accurate in many aspects of covering there were some Hollywood
liberties taken in certain depictions of public health preparedness. If an
outbreak like this occurred, there would certainly be a greater level of
communication to the public about what was going on than was displayed in the
movie. Similarly there were several instances where there were scarcity of
emergency resources, such as lack of blankets, food rations, and facilities to
aid the sick. Ideally public health agencies would be better prepared, however
due to the magnitude of the outbreak in this movie it is certainly believable
that many resources would be scarce and it would be difficult to mobilize such
resources efficiently and effectively as a result of wide spread panic.
Interesting blog. I was also surprised by the lack of emergency resources. It seems odd that there was not an emergency plan in place. Although, we must take the scale of the emergency – how could anyone be prepared for that? But like you said, there should have been something.
ReplyDeleteKat
Jameson, I am glad you took notice of the "Hollywood liberties" of this movie and its impact on real life public health officials. However, I also think that this movie portrayed strong evidence of how the preparedness and reactions of public health officials would occur if the situation were to be this severe. I think that the notification that certain individuals received over others because of their government involvement is a real, unfair consequence in an outbreak, where information and vaccinations are scarce. Public health officials should be aware of their scarcities, however, and be efficient and direct in their means to help as many people as possible. Having a secondary and tertiary food supply, for example, would help eliminate panic and violence seen at the rations.
ReplyDeleteHey Jamison,
ReplyDeleteLike Jared, I was also glad that you noticed the effect of "Hollywood" on the film. I also think that with the severity of the outbreak we can say that the "lack of preparedness" is not only a little dramatized but also somewhat accurate. But in seeing what becomes of this problem in the film, we as public health students can see how important efficiency in mobilization of resources can be in containing disease and protecting the populatuion
Great Blog,
Shawdae
Thank you for this blog. You did a nice job summarizing the movie. In what ways was the movie easier to understand after taking the public health class?
ReplyDeleteYou did a nice job incorporating the definitions that were asked about into your commentary, but you didn’t really define the terms themselves. An outbreak occurs when the number of disease cases exceeds the expected number for a given time, place, and population. Sometimes the number of cases isn’t really very high at all, it’s just more than expected. For example, having even 5-10 flu cases in July would be abnormal and may signal an outbreak of a new strain. An outbreak investigation has 10 steps: Confirm existence of outbreak, verify diagnosis, define a case and count cases, perform descriptive epidemiology, define population at risk, develop hypothesis for source and spread, evaluate hypothesis, reconsider/redefine hypothesis, implement control measures, communicate findings. It’s really a process that looks for the source and how to control it, including how to tell the public about it and what steps to take. Isolation is separating people from others to prevent the spread of infection, whereas quarantine is an actual imposed restriction of activities or freedom of movement of those thought to be exposed to a communicable disease in order to prevent spread to the unexposed. The term quarantine comes from Italian’s quaranta, which means forty, for the number of days that sailors returning to Italy thought to be exposed to the plague were made to stay on the ship before being released.
Regarding your last point, while I would hope that public health officials would be prepared for a disaster or an outbreak similar to that seen in Contagion, I think that history has proven otherwise. Look at the national response to Katrina, for example – those who were moved to the stadium had insufficient medical supplies, water and food for the first few days if not more. However, in the last decade, as you heard about from Dan Barnett, disaster preparedness has become much more of a priority nationally and though we cannot plan for every type of disaster or epidemic, we are much more prepared now than ever.