How prepared do you think we are to handle an epidemic such as what happened in
How prepared do you think we are to handle an epidemic such as what happened in the movie Contagion?
The movie makers went to a lot of time and effort to make the situation be as realistic as possible given current technology and disease knowledge, so what you saw was a really accurate depiction of just how prepared we are right now.
Which means we aren't really all that prepared.I haven't seen the movie, mainly because the idea of a contagious epidemic from a new disease feels so scary and real to me. In the World Flu Epidemic of 1918 my grandfather, who was a young teenager at the time, lost half of his nuclear family. I don't remember knowing that fact when I was growing up, but in the early 1970's while I was studying to be a registered nurse my mom told me about it. In the late 1980's and 1990's I was a public health nurse and gave flu shots at free clinics which was very gratifying because I knew how life saving the shots could be.
Then, after the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001 I worked as a nurse for the State of Delaware until my retirement last year and during that time period we received annual trainings as to what to do if there is any kind of terror attack including use of biological and/or chemical weapons. The scenarios are scary and if a totally new highly contagious disease was somehow manufactured by terrorists and unleashed on the public, or occured naturally, and there was no known treatment or vaccine for it, the whole world would be in big trouble.I do not think that this world can handle an epidemic like contagion. Look how many deadly diseases that live alongside us each day that pharmaceutical companies, research industries, the government and medical communities overlook for the love of money. I believe that there are cures for most medical diseases, but the money involvement will keep them at bay. This is America at its worst.
