As our nation hunkers down in beds or living room couches, pandemic movies have become a popular source of entertainment. Outbreak, which came out in 1995 and follows the fictional “Motaba virus,” is #7 on Netflix’s top movies. Contagion, a 2011 movie about the fictional “MEV-1,” has spiked in Google searches within the past 30 days alone. As someone who’s seen both, I had to ask myself: how much of these movies are fact, or is it all just fiction? (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
Movie: Outbreak
Scene:
Dustin Hoffman barges into the office and confronts Morgan Freeman. “Now the virus comes here, and two kids die, and we could’ve stopped it right then and there, but we don’t because we have to protect the perfect biological weapon.” Hoffman, playing a military scientist, was exposing Freeman, playing a general, to the whole audience and all I could think was, “Is that even legal?”
Fact or Fiction?
Fiction, at least it’s supposed to be. Back in 1972, multiple countries agreed to a treaty put forward by the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).The treaty banned the development and stockpiling of any weaponized disease-causing organisms or toxins. Australia, Russia and the United States were among the first to ratify the treaty, while others such as China and France have acceded to it since then. So, by the time the plot of Outbreak is occurring, biological weapons were illegal, but you can always read the Reddit theories if you’re interested.
Scene:
Nearing the climax of the movie, the audience still finds itself wondering: “Who (or what) started this virus?” The answer? A capuchin monkey that was captured and brought all the way from the Motaba Valley to Cedar Creek. That leads to the question of whether or not it’s possible for a monkey to be the source of such a large outbreak…
Fact or Fiction?
Fact. According to this article, animals are often the natural hosts, or reservoirs, of diseases. Ebola is thought to have been started by bats, as well as SARS (another type of coronavirus).
Movie: Contagion
Scene:
Conspiracy theorists are nothing new. After all, who hasn’t seen at least one Shane Dawson video? Contagion has its theorist by the name of Alan Krumwiede, who covered the virus, faked having it, and then pretended to cure himself with forsythia. If doing all of that only led him to a fraud arrest, then why would anyone do it in the first place?
Fact or Fiction?
Fact. Just recently, on March 25, small-time 53-year-old actor Keith Lawrence Middlebrook peddled a fake cure to millions of his online followers. His claim? “Not only did I make the cure, but this pill right here is the prevention.” It’s a little scary to think that people are trying to take advantage of this delicate situation, but as U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna says, “During these difficult days, scams like this are using blatant lies to prey upon our fears and weaknesses. While this may be the first federal criminal case in the nation stemming from the pandemic, it certainly will not be the last.”
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