Hollywood's pandemic warning of ten years ago should have been headed

It seems one Hollywood film's story is perhaps more relevant than ever. Tracey McNamara is a professor of Pathology at Western University of Health Sciences in California. She helped discover the West Nile Virus and pushed the Department of Defense to investigate the disease, and she was also a scientific advisor on the 2011 movie "Contagion." The film has seen a surge of popularity in recent days as the coronavirus outbreak continues. "Contagion" has a start-studded cast (including Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow) and is about a global epidemic that starts in Hong Kong and spreads around the world as scientists search for a cure. In the end, millions die from the fictional disease. McNamara says, "The movie really rang true, now that we're dealing with coronavirus, it really captured when you're dealing with something unknown." She also adds, "If people are watching it again, and if federal and state officials are watching it again, I hope they're realizing that the movie was really about what can happen with a novel pandemic threat, and I think people should have taken it much more seriously. I wish people had paid closer attention to it when the film came out, because it really was a warning to the federal government that this could happen and you need to prepare." The trailer for "Contagion," which is posted on YouTube, recently surpassed 11 million views.