NEW YORK -- New York, the city that never sleeps, has been shrouded in stillness. The death toll from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has totaled about 13,000 in New York State, more than four times that recorded for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Grocery store cashiers wear face shields, while people are careful about not touching even doorknobs or elevator buttons. Daily life continues with people fearful of something they can't see.
There was a movie that depicted such a world like this. Released in 2011, "Contagion" starts with a scene where we hear the sound of a woman coughing.
The movie depicted the process of how fear becomes rampant as a virus originating in Hong Kong spreads rapidly across the world. Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon and other stars played victims of the infectious disease, bereaved family members, administrative officials or researchers who struggle to bring the pandemic under control.
Analysis of clusters. Identification of who came in close contact with those infected with the virus. The struggles of medical service workers. Panic buying at supermarkets. An extreme blogger who whips up fear. Skirmishes for a bigger share of a budget within a public office. The movie has drawn attention because the scenes depicted surprisingly match the phenomena that the world now faces.
The movie provides us with lessons and those worst-case scenarios that we must avoid.
A pair of lovers, with a partner in quarantine, look fixedly at each other through glass to avert the risk of infection. A throng of people, who have lost their composure, descend on a drugstore in search of a remedy, just on the basis of dubious information on its efficacy against the virus. While the movie also depicts the greed of the people who scramble for a vaccine for the virus, it shows impressive scenes, such as a man giving his own vaccine to a child of an acquaintance, and a woman who works hard to prevent infections from spreading in a district where medical facilities are lacking.
I recently heard from Dr. Ian Lipkin, an expert on infectious diseases at Columbia University who supervised the movie as a technical advisor. He said that the movie was one that assumed a paramyxovirus, which causes measles, rather than a new coronavirus. As it was based on a respiratory illness, however, the movie has turned out to have ominous foresight, he added.
Lipkin was infected with the coronavirus in March and was stricken with a high fever and a feeling of fatigue. He said the virus is extremely contagious and cautioned people not to underestimate it. He sounded warning bells by saying that, as the movie depicted, when plunged into a crisis, people will reveal their true nature.
Nobuhiko Obayashi, a master of the Japanese cinema world who recently passed away, focused his anti-war sentiments into his movies. "We cannot alter the past with our expressions, but we can change our future with it," he once said. I want to believe that the power of the movies is the same, irrespective of whether they depict anti-war sentiments or the fight with an infectious disease.
Nobody knows how long our battle with the coronavirus will last. There are even such tentative estimates that unless effective measures are taken, the virus could still claim a large number of lives. Nevertheless, it is each and every one of us, who lives now, that can change the future. To avoid the risks as depicted in the movie, now is the time when we should once again reflect on the need for self-imposed actions, and the importance of maintaining composure and consideration for others.
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