Notes

This movie describes a fictional influenza pandemic: the origin of the virus, the human toll, the response of the public health agencies, and the various reactions of people to a public health emergency. The film is a reasonable prediction of what would occur in the event of a moderately lethal influenza pandemic.


The film concludes by showing how the virus originated. Emhoff's firm, a mining corporation based in Minneapolis, is actively clearing jungle and a bulldozer knocks over a palm tree in which bats were nesting. They fly out and one bat, the vector, lands on a banana plant, eating a chunk of banana. Not having its tree to return to, the bat flies to a nearby hog building, where it drops the banana into a pig sty, where a pig eats it. The pig is then sold and slaughtered and is shown being prepared by a chef in the Macau casino Beth Emhoff was in. The chef smears the pig's blood on his apron but does not wash his hands before shaking Beth's hand, thereby infecting her with the disease.
In the film's fictional story, a bat eat a piece of fruit that is then also eaten by a pig, so the bat infects the pig with MEV-1 and then the pig incubates the virus and possibly causes a mutation that is then passed along to humans. This is an oversimplification of the process, but generally speaks to the larger factual points about source and transmission of these types of viruses.
Henipaviruses were eventually found in fruit bats in Northern Africa.

Touching someone who has it or touching something they have touched, or breathing in the same air.

a bat gave it to a pig which ended up in a restaurant in Hong Kong. a chef touched the raw pig's mouth, didn't wash his hands, & shook Beth's hand & she got the virus

1 in 12 contract the disiase and 25-30% die


1. Who is patient zero?
2. How does to contagion spread from Hong Kong, China to Guangdong Province, China 90 miles away?
3. Why did her husband not get infected?
4. What was the role of the CDC in the film?
5. What part does private industry play in fighting this epidemic?
6. What is the worldwide organization that deals with the outbreak?
7. Why has the world health organization (WHO) and Dr. Leonora Orantes become involved?
8. What role does social media play in the outbreak?
9. What were the origins of this virus? (Species origins)
10. What are the modes of transmission? Define fomite (Hint:Dr Erin Maers' meeting).
11. What does Dr. Ally Hextall tell Dr. Ellis Cheever that "...somewhere in the world the wrong pig met up with the wrong bat" as the are discussing the protein structure of the contagion?
12. Why does Dr. Ally Hextall tell Dr. Ian Sussman to "cook his samples"?
13. Why does Dr. Leonora Orantes go to Hong Kong?
14. Would this virus be categorized as an emerging virus? Why?
15. How realistic do you think this film was? Explain in a well developed paragraph on back.
16. Why does it take months and months before a vaccine can be released to the public?
17. Why does Dr. Ally Hextall inject herself with vaccine #57?
18. Dr. Leonora Orantes research indicates how each person came into contact with Beth Emhoff on day 1. Using this information, explain how the contagion traveled around the world ( Using the 'where' section of question 2).



1. Patient zero is Gwenneth Paltrow
2. the waiter who picked up her drink glass contracted the disease ( initially spread through contact and later went airborne), he lives in Guangdong Province commuting to Hong Kong for work
3.Many people were immune, her husband (Matt Damon) was one of them
4.The CDC had to find a vaccine that would stop the virus from spreading
5.
6. The World Health Organization (WHO)
7. The CDC asked for assistance
8. Social media notified the public to stay inside and to call a number if you had the symptoms of the virus
9. The virus developed when an infected bat dropped a piece of fruit into a pig pen. the pig ate it causing the virus to mutate. The pig was later bought and killed for food. When the Chef at the hotel was preparing the pig, he was called out to meet Gwenneth Paltrow. He didn't wash his hands before he met her, he simply just wiped them on his blood stained apron.
10. modes were contact and airborne. a fomite can live on objects (such as a coffee cup, door handle, light switch etc.) for long periods of time infecting anyone that comes into contact with it.
11.their protein structures allowed the virus to mutate.
12. to cook his samples means to destroy them. The CDC will destroy virus samples to prevent further outbreaks and to ensure that they do not fall into the hands of enemies or terrorists. If the CDC becomes under attack or the world were to suddenly end, the computer system will automatically destroy all the samples with intense heat and flames.
13 that's where patient zero got infected, she went there as a starting point to track down where it came from
14.
15. it was realistic
16. it takes a long time to develop a vaccine, first they have to figure out what the virus is, they have to figure out where it began. they have to research and develop a vaccine, then they have to test it on infected monkeys to make sure its safe to give out to the public
17. She followed in her fathers footsteps by injecting herself with the vaccine to test it as her father did many years ago
18.the main people infected by Gwenneth Paltrow were
the waiter who collected her glass, he lived in Guangdong Province, China.
there was a Russian Model who was siting at the bar next to Gwenneth, she became infected when Gwenneth forgot her cell phone and she picked it up to give to her. She later went back to Russia and infected people there

Gwenneth then went to Chicago as a layover before going home. However in Chicago she left the airport to meet up and have sex with her old boyfriend, thus infecting him.
Her assistant was also infected after picking her up at the airport.
from there the virus spread like crazy infecting millions of people

When she got home she infected her son, who in turn infected the kids at his school. Matt Damons daughter wasnt home at the time, she was with her mother and didnt get exposed to it.

In the movie Contagion, Dr. Leonora Orantes, a French member of the World Health Organisation (WHO), is kidnapped by a group of Chinese people trying to protect their small village. After a vaccine is finally created she is used to negotiate a handover of the vaccine. A meetup happens and they get the vaccine.


Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) has a layover in Chicago to rendezvous with a former lover before returning to her family in suburban Minneapolis. She appears to have contracted a cold during her trip. Her six-year-old son from a previous marriage, Clark, also becomes symptomatic and is sent home from school. Beth's condition worsens and two days later she collapses with severe seizures. Her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause.

Mitch returns home and finds that Clark has also died from a similar infection. Mitch is placed in isolation but seems to be immune to the disease. He is released and returns home to his teenaged daughter Jory, who had been living with Mitch's former wife and her husband and has decided to stay with Mitch since he's now all alone. As more and more persons become infected with no cure in sight, they face decaying social order and rampant looting of stores and homes. Mitch is unsure if Jory has inherited his immunity and he struggles with the frustration of quarantine, his desire to protect his daughter and learning that his wife was unfaithful to him immediately prior to both her death and that of his stepson.

In Atlanta, representatives of the Department of Homeland Security meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) of the CDC and express fears that the disease is a bio weapon intended to cause terror over the Thanksgiving weekend. Dr. Cheever dispatches Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis to begin investigating. Mears traces the outbreak back to Emhoff while negotiating with local bureaucrats initially reluctant to commit resources for a proper public health response to the virus. Dr. Mears later becomes infected and dies.

At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) determines the virus is a mix of genetic material from pig and bat viruses. Work on a cure stalls because scientists cannot discover a cell culture within which to grow the newly identified Meningoencephalitis Virus One (MEV-1).

UCSF professor Dr. Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould) violates orders from Cheever (relayed through Hextall) to destroy his samples, and identifies a usable MEV-1 cell culture using bat cells. Hextall uses the breakthrough to work on a vaccine. Other scientists determine the virus is spread by fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates, with projections of one in twelve of the population being infected, and a 25-30% mortality rate.

Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) posts videos about the virus on his popular blog. In one video, he shows himself sick and later claims he recovered using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. In a panic, people seeking forsythia overwhelm pharmacies, spreading and accelerating the contagion as the infected come into contact with healthy people.

Krumwiede's claims attract national attention. During a television interview he discloses that Dr. Cheever had secretly informed friends and family to leave Chicago just before the city was quarantined. Cheever is then informed the government will investigate and may charge him for leaking information. Later it is revealed Krumwiede had faked being infected by the virus in an attempt to increase profits for shareholders in companies producing and selling forsythia. Krumwiede is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud, only to walk free when his many supporters successfully raise funds to provide for his bail.

Using an attenuated virus Dr. Hextall identifies a possible vaccine. To cut out the lengthy time it would take to obtain informed consent from infected patients, Dr. Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and immediately visits her gravely ill father (Dan Flannery), who has been infected with MEV-1. The doctor does not contract MEV-1 and the vaccine is declared a success.

The vaccine's production is rapidly increased, but due to limited production, the CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birth date. Inoculations take place for one full year until every survivor is vaccinated. First responders, doctors and others designated by the government are declared exempt from the lottery. Dr. Cheever gives his fast-tracked MEV-1 vaccination to the son of Roger (John Hawkes), a CDC janitor who had overheard Dr. Cheever's phone call warning his girlfriend to leave Chicago.

Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard), a WHO epidemiologist, travels to Hong Kong to follow the Beth Emhoff lead. She collaborates with Sun Feng (Chin Han) and other local epidemiologists and public health officials; they identify Emhoff as patient zero. As the virus spreads, Feng kidnaps Orantes to use her as leverage to obtain MEV-1 vaccine doses for his village. Orantes spends months living with the villagers until the vaccine is announced. Feng exchanges Orantes for the vaccine doses. Her colleague mentions that the exchanged doses were placebos and Orantes rushes away to warn them.

The death toll at least reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. Dr. Hextall places samples of MEV-1 in cryogenic storage, alongside samples of H1N1 and SARS.

The source of the virus is revealed to viewers. A bulldozer (coincidently, operating for the company Emhoff worked for) knocks down a palm tree disturbing some bats, with one finding shelter and food in a banana tree. That bat then flies over a pig pen, dropping a chunk of banana from its mouth, which is then eaten by a piglet. Chinese chefs later collect pigs from the pen and take them to a Hong Kong casino. A chef is called away from his preparations of a piglet, and casually wipes his hands on his apron. The chef then shakes hands with Beth Emhoff, giving her the mix of bat and pig viruses that makes her patient zero and the origin of the MEV-1 virus.