![]() In place of an ending, we are told that we must “learn to live with the virus.”Īs we approach the two-year mark of Covid-19, the virus shows no signs of adhering to a linear plotlineĪcross the many contexts in which it is used, the only universal meaning that “learning to live with the virus” holds is learning to live with uncertainty. Many are still living with long Covid after initially getting sick months or years ago. Lockdowns lift and are re-imposed, borders open and then close again. People in countries with high vaccination rates declare that the pandemic is over even as it is reported that less than two percent of people living in lower-income countries have received a vaccine dose. The vaccine roll-out is patchy, fragmented and slow, while new strains crop up with various degrees of resistance. But as we approach the two-year mark of Covid-19, the virus shows no signs of adhering to a linear plotline. Fictional pandemics apply the textbook narrative of illness on a public scale, progressing in a three-act structure from symptom (patient zero), to diagnosis (global lockdowns), to cure (vaccine). ![]() Helen Young, a professor of literary studies at Deakin University, films like Contagion are appealing pandemic viewing precisely because of their guarantee of closure. The heavy-handed association between the end of the pandemic and a feeling of psychological closure makes for a complete and gratifying sense of an ending - even as the last five minutes of the film, which suggest the emergence of a new virus, set up for a sequel.Ĭontagion does what it needs to do as a Hollywood film: It brings the pandemic to an end. In one of the final scenes, Matt Damon’s character finds himself able to grieve the death of his wife for the first time. Towards the end, a successful vaccine is engineered and distributed over the course of several months via a conscription-style birthday lottery. ![]() ![]() I watched the film from my living room in April 2020 and marveled, as many others did, at its apparent prescience. In March 2020, shortly after the beginning of the pandemic, Warner Bros reported that the biomedical thriller Contagion (2011) had jumped radically in popularity. ![]()
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