The Conversation (0)
Kate Plummer
Apr 04, 2021
Netflix
An only too prescient film about pandemics is leaving Netflix today.
Contagion, which was released in 2011, is being removed from the streaming platform in the UK after a year of horrifying viewers with its similarities to the coronavirus pandemic.
Starring Matt Damon, the film is about the spread of a respiratory virus, and the introduction of a vaccine to combat it. It also shows society panic as the virus reaches every country in the world, killing the most vulnerable.
Sound familiar? Well embarrassingly, health secretary Matt Hancock related to it so heavily that he said it shaped his strategy on the UK’s coronavirus vaccination programme.
Speaking on LBC earlier this year he said: “In the film, it shows the moment of highest stress around the vaccine programme is not before its rolled out - when the scientists and manufacturers work together at pace - it’s afterwards when there is a huge row of the order of priority.”
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With A Star is Born soon to be uploaded to the streaming site, let’s just hope Hancock isn’t inspired to launch a career as a singer.
Anyway, with mere hours remaining to watch it and the sun going in, now seems a good time as any to see what the fuss is about.
For those who have already seen it, it was announced in December that a sequel is in the works. Let’s just hope the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t get a reboot.