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[COVID19 | EPIDEMICS] i'm watching contagion
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i remember watching this while we were in alaska
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it just happened to be in the hotel room
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and i'm a hypochondriac so i've always been fascinated by diseases
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and especially epidemiology, how things spread
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so i watched it with my brother and his wife
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and of course i had anxiety dreams all night but even then i was like "well damn, good movie, very accurate"
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there was one of those like, vice videos i think on youtube? where they bring in an expert to react to the portrayal of their area of expertise in movies
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and the guy watched a clip from contagion and was like "wow they're talking about fomites and r0, well done"
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not vice, wired
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the thing that's really understated about this movie is the period after the vaccine is development
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the slow slog back toward normal
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one of the characters goes shopping in a mall--but he has to have a wristband scanned in order to get in, presumably to assure that he's healthy
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one of the characters gets his and his wife's vaccines--but doesn't take it right away, because his wife got champagne for the occasion
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my favorite scene in the movie is when the director of the cdc goes to the home of one of the building's janitors
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to give the vaccines to the janitor and his son
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and he has this short anecdote about how the tradition of shaking hands came to be
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how it was a way to greet someone with an open hand to show you weren't carrying a weapon
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which may or may not be true or mythologized
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and then he and the janitor slowly and deliberately shake hands
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and it's this perfect understated moment
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of, it will never be the same again, but there can be a new normal, and eventually we can shake hands again. but we should do it carefully