Happy Uncanny Anniversary, SARS‑CoV‑2
Still got you on my mind, and probably everywhere else
My, how time flies, unless you find yourself in the middle of a viral pandemic navigating CDC and WHO attempts at mostly perplexing, if not alarming mitigations - masks or no masks, social distancing, lock-downs, no church services, no funerals, dying alone - and coping their repercussions, even now.
By chance, on the 5th anniversary week of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, I decided to veg out - even at the risk of not moving for two hours - with a favorite Steven Soderbergh movie, Contagion. The last time I streamed this 2011 thriller was in 2021, armed with facts and figures from recent reads, Apollo’s Arrow by Nicholas A. Christakis and The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.
I thought I had all the answers back then, and couldn’t help but notice the prescient similarities then between this Soderbergh’s zoonotic version and the Operation Warp Speed race for a vaccine, eventual mRNA harms notwithstanding. As it turned out, so many of us didn’t have a clue what the jab had in store for us, then or now. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the multigenerational effects of lab leaks, gain of function research and fraudulent Big Pharma efficacy claims rarely see the light of day outside their protective corporate news bubbles.
Nevertheless, make some popcorn and watch or re-watch Contagion, for free on Tubi. Enjoy - if that’s the right word - the uncanny similarities. It’s all there: “My body, my choice!”… social distancing (10 feet!)…”Wash your hands!”…”Don’t touch your face!”…Lonely dying…”Where’s your mask?”…lock-downs, and more. Imagine a Contagion prequel with an all-star cast from an advance copy of a 2020 rewrite, complete with with the speed of science, mandates, paranoia and all.
I remember it well Gino...:/ :o)