Siayngco, Mary Rose Shelyn E.

10/11/2022
ARC205 The Contemporary World
Reflection Paper
Contagion is a movie that follows the story of an ordinary family that contributes to the

rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus called the MEV-1 that would surely kill a person within

days. It all started with the mother (Beth) that was about to go home from a business trip in Hong

Kong, unknowingly caught the virus and eventually spread this virus from anyone she has close

contact with. In result, the virus affected millions of people which may cause for them to die.

Hence, the government alongside the WHO and CDC, immediately acted to this global pandemic.

In this movie, the WHO worked with the government and CDC to contain and find a cure

to this virus. They started tackling this pandemic through investigation and research. The

investigation begins by finding the origin of the virus which led them to the family of Beth who

died because of the virus. To prevent any further spread of it, the family was quarantined and

isolated and the researchers find out that the father is immune to the virus, and they could use him

to make a vaccine for it. Unfortunately, the news about the virus was leaked that caused chaos to

everyone. And this is where I think the WHO, CDC, and the government lacked, since they weren’t

able to handle and planned how they would inform the public about the virus which they could

prevented if the government was able to prepare precautions and notice for the community to see

and know.

Surely, this movie was made through the help of the experts that would guide them about

writing and flow of the story. However, we should also know that not entirely of this movie is

100% accurate since it is a fictional movie with just some references of true events. Because of

this, the flow of the story is fast-paced, and they were able to produce a vaccine immediately which

is not impossible however it is unlikely to happen in a short notice since if we compare it to the
pandemic we are facing today, vaccines were not made immediately, and we have to wait for how

many months to contain the virus.