Jim Pagiamtzis ReviewStellar cast with a powerful message what a virus can do to the world!10 out of 10 starsMovie plotReturning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff meets with a former lover during a Chicago layover. Two days later, back home in suburban Minneapolis, she has a seizure. Her husband, Mitch Emhoff, rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause. Returning home, Mitch finds that his stepson, Clark, has also died. Mitch is isolated but found to be naturally immune; after being released, Mitch protectively keeps his teenage daughter, Jory, quarantined at their house.
In Atlanta, Department of Homeland Security representatives meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over concerns that the disease may be a bioweapon. Cheever dispatches Dr. Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis where she traces everyone who had contact with Beth. She negotiates with reluctant local bureaucrats to commit resources for a public health response. Soon after, Mears becomes infected and dies. As the novel virus spreads, several cities are placed under quarantine, causing wide-spread looting and violence.
At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall determines the virus is a combination of genetic material from pig and bat-borne viruses. Research on a cure stalls because scientists are unable to discover a cell culture within which to grow the newly identified MEV-1. Dr. Cheever determines the virus too virulent to be researched at multiple labs and restricts all work to one government site. Dr. Hextall orders University of California researcher Dr. Ian Sussman to destroy his samples. Believing he is close to finding a viable cell culture, Sussman violates Cheever's order and eventually identifies a usable MEV-1 cell culture using bat cells, from which Hextall develops a vaccine. Other scientists determine the virus is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 of the world population will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate.
Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede posts videos about the virus on his blog. In one video, he claims to have cured himself of the virus using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. People seeking forsythia overwhelm pharmacies, turning violent when limited supplies run out. During a television interview, Krumwiede discloses that Cheever secretly warned his fiancée to leave Chicago before quarantine was declared. Cheever is informed he will be investigated. Krumwiede, having faked being infected to boost sales of forsythia, is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud.
Using an attenuated virus, Hextall identifies a potential vaccine. To expedite the vaccine development, Hexall bypasses the informed consent test subject process. She instead inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine, then visits her infected father. She does not contract MEV-1 and the vaccine is declared a success. The CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birthdates. By this time, the death toll has reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide.
Earlier in Hong Kong, World Health Organization epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes and public health officials comb through security video tapes of Beth's contacts in a Macau casino and identify her as the index case. Government official Sun Feng kidnaps Orantes as leverage to obtain MEV-1 vaccine doses for his village, holding her for months. WHO officials provide the village with earliest vaccines and Orantes is released. When she learns the vaccines were placebos, she runs to warn the village.
In a flashback to the spillover event, a bulldozer razes palm trees while clearing a rainforest in China, disturbing some bats' natural habitat. One bat finds shelter in a pig farm and drops an infected piece of banana, which is eaten by a pig. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who transmits the virus to Beth via a handshake.
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