Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 multi-narrative pandemic film “Contagion” stands as a clarion call for the next decade. The film tells about the appearance of the novel MEV-1. Before the scientists figure out what they are dealing with, people begin to panic and a riot rages in the streets. Meanwhile, a WHO official, a Hong Kong government agent, two CDC scientists, a California epidemiologist, and a messianic conspiracy theorist struggle to find a cure against time running out.
On the other hand, a father and daughter come to terms with the loss of the mother, who may have been the pandemic’s first patient. In retrospect, the film’s precision in depicting an epidemic is surreal – and you might be wondering if the virus came from a pathology textbook. Also, does the virus look a bit like COVID-19? Let us find out! FRONT SPOILERS.
Is MEV-1 a real virus?
No, MEV-1 is not a real virus. In the film, the virus outbreak begins in Hong Kong and then spreads to other cities, such as Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis and London. From the first cases of the epidemic, WHO experts are trying to build a chronology of events. They are also trying to find patient Index, the one who was the first spreader of the virus. WHO representative Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) travels to Hong Kong to trace the origin of the virus. In the United States, scientists are struggling to grow the virus on a petri dish to speed up the process of finding a cure. The CDC’s Dr. Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) thinks the virus is too dangerous to be researched in multiple labs.
Following the warrant, Dr. Hextall orders Dr. Ian Sussman, an esteemed University of California San Francisco virologist and researcher, to destroy the samples. However, Sussman identifies a viable cell culture, defying the CDC’s order. However, Sussman contacts Dr. Hextall to let her know about the discovery rather than publishing his research. According to Dr. Sussman, the virus has new characteristics.
The virus appears to be of chimeric origin – subject to mutation. It is fifteen to nineteen kilobases long and contains six to ten genes. The virus has an R-zero of 4 after transformation, meaning one infected person can distribute it to four healthy people. Dr. Sussman categorizes the virus as a paramyxovirus. It seems that a lot of research has been done on the script because even though the virus is not real, the definition is quite realistic.
The family of viruses, Paramyxoviridae, is palpable in epidemiology textbooks. The virus family includes negative strand RNA viruses – and some examples are measles virus, mumps virus and Nipah virus (the latter comes from bats, like MEV-1 in the movie). Measles has existed since the 9th century, while the Nipah virus is relatively recent, appearing until 1999.
Therefore, an MEV-1-like virus surfacing in the next millennium may not be unlikely. According to National Geographic, approximately ten non-millions (10 to the power of 31) unidentified individual viruses inhabit the planet, which is more than the number of stars in the known universe. This rough estimate should give you an idea of ​​how exposed humans and other animals are to viruses.
Is MEV-1 similar to Covid-19?
Technically, MEV-1 and COVID-19 are not similar viruses, as they are not from the same virus family. While MEV-1 is a paramyxovirus, COVID-19 belongs to the coronaviridae family. Before coronaviruses had their own species, they belonged to the niboviridae family. A paramyxovirus is a negative strand RNA virus, but a coronavirus is a positive strand RNA virus. Coronavirus affects both vertebrates and invertebrates, while in the case of paramyxovirus, vertebrates are more susceptible to catching the virus.
In other words, if you don’t have a skeleton, catching paramyxovirus is nearly impossible. The only link between MEV-1 and COVID-19 appears to be bats – and according to research published in Nature, bats harbor nearly nine thousand different viral sequences. And guess what, most of them are coronaviridae, while paramyxoviridae come third. Therefore, the two viruses are not similar – although the host and the symptoms may be somewhat identical.
Read more: Movies like Contagion
