With the coronavirus pandemic sending people indoors, many are turning to Netflix to provide some entertainment. Perhaps appropriately, 1995’s Outbreak is currently one of the most-watched movies on the streaming service.
While that classic blockbuster provides a well-acted mix of thrills and chills, people who want a more serious education about viral outbreaks should check out Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, released earlier this year.
The six-part documentary offers viewers an intimate portrayal of humanity’s battle against infectious diseases, taking us across the globe from India to Vietnam to the suburbs of California.
Although the docuseries was produced before the novel coronavirus struck Wuhan, China, the experts interviewed throughout were almost clairvoyant in describing the possibility of a global outbreak.
“When we talk about another flu pandemic happening, it’s not a matter of if but when,” Dr. Dennis Carroll, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Emerging Threats Unit, says after showing us a field that served as a mass grave for the victims of the 1918 Spanish flu. A small-town doctor in Oklahoma, Holly Goracke, warns she has no idea what she would do in a pandemic because of her hospital’s limited resources: “I think we would be overwhelmed. I don’t think we would be able to manage should a flu pandemic occur in our little county.”
Watching the documentary, you can’t help but wonder why the governments of the world weren’t more prepared for the coronavirus. As Michael Leavitt, the Health and Human Services secretary under George W. Bush, said back in 2007, “Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist.” Now, as Western countries race to “flatten the curve” and slow the spread of the virus, what Leavitt said next seems even more prophetic: “Everything we do after a pandemic will seem inadequate.”
Provided you want to do anything in the first place. Pandemic takes a detour to the suburbs of Oregon, where we see families organizing against laws that would prohibit children from certain school activities unless they receive vaccinations for measles and other illnesses.
The series doesn’t demonize these anti-vaccination activists: While it makes clear that there is no scientific basis for their fear of vaccines, it portrays them as sincere in their concern for their children. But it’s difficult to square the image of upper-middle-class parents demanding exemptions from vaccines with scenes later in the series of desperate people in India suffering from swine flu and Congolese people being battered by Ebola. The mothers in Oregon utilize the language of liberal activism, demanding the right to “consent” and bodily autonomy. Meanwhile, poor people the world over are rushing to hospitals for remedies for the diseases battering their communities. It’s a reminder that being rich and well-educated isn’t the same as being smart.
One theme permeating Pandemic is that of human frailty in the face of a foe we can’t even see with the naked eye. As our schools shut down, our communal events are canceled, and we remain at home in a collective bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many of us are feeling vulnerable for the first time in our lives.
Most people aren’t used to feeling so endangered. While you wouldn’t realize it from looking at social media or cable news since 2016, the United States really is one of the world’s safest and most prosperous places. Just ask the 1 million immigrants who come here every year or the 158 million people worldwide who told Gallup in 2018 they would move to the U.S. if they could.
But our prosperity and safety must be vigorously guarded. Thus far, the American response to the pandemic has been lacking, to say the least — although at the time of writing, state and local governments are moving more aggressively to close schools and limit large gatherings, and the federal government is mulling an economic support package.
Our weak defense against humankind’s oldest enemy, the pathogen, has manifested itself across the political spectrum. On the Right, President Trump spent weeks downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, and on March 14, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt tweeted out images of himself in a packed food hall while public health officials urged people to avoid crowds. Meanwhile, some on the Left have seemed more concerned with policing etiquette than responding to the threat. CNN worried that Trump’s coronavirus task force needed more racial diversity, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes has publicly fretted about a member of Congress referring to the new virus as the “Wuhan Virus.” (Was the media also disturbed by West Nile Virus or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome?)
Compared to the response of some other countries, events in the U.S. have resembled black comedy. For instance, South Korea (a democracy, it should be recalled) has managed its response to the virus with military efficiency. The government is using smartphone applications to track the infected and alert people who were potentially in contact with them. Testing is being done in fast food-style drive-thrus. Volunteers are working with provincial governments to feed people in self-quarantine, eliminating their need to leave home for food while helping to alleviate their financial worries.
Which brings us to the other theme of Pandemic: solidarity. The documentary showcases people across the world breaking their backs to cure diseases and heal the afflicted. We watch medical staff voluntarily go into hot zones to tackle Ebola, one of the world’s deadliest diseases. We meet a doctor who was inspired by the film Outbreak as a young girl and went on to become one of New York City’s leading pathogen experts. “I am not one to back down,” says a doctor who works deep in Rajasthan, India’s largest state. “The flu will be back next year. We will fight against it again.” Perhaps if frailty is our ailment, solidarity is the cure.
Zaid Jilani is a Bridging Differences writing fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and a freelance journalist.
