The 2011 movie Contagion has been showing on cable movie channels in recent weeks. It shows how a deadly, contagious virus can begin innocently enough and then spread so far and wide that thousands die and cities completely shut down.

What I liked about the movie was how realistic the scenario was. For instance, not everyone got the virus, just as some people would be immune for reasons unknown if something like this happened.

The movie is so powerful, in my opinion, that whenever I get an alert like the one below, I wonder: Is this the big contagion?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out this alert in recent days:

CDC is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners to assess the public health risk presented by a recently detected, novel coronavirus, associated with severe respiratory illness in two men. The first patient, a man aged 60 years from Saudi Arabia, was hospitalized in June 2012 and died; the second patient, a man aged 49 years from Qatar with onset of symptoms in September 2012, was transported to the United Kingdom, where he remains hospitalized on life support. Because of the possibility of frequent updates as new information becomes available, readers are encouraged to consult the CDC coronavirus website

(Photo still from the movie Contagion)

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