How similar is the risk assessment and risk (miscommunication) in the movie Contagion to the current pandemic?


Soha Ahmed

        https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7somzw 


Going through this current pandemic reminds you about the chaos in the movie contagion. What we noticed in the movie was the involvement of CDC carrying out risk assessment professionally throughout the movie and the same questions are thought about the realisticness of every procedure. Risk assessment and communication are the main things when you’re dealing with a deadly virus and don’t want to panic the people but at the same time protect them efficiently and quickly overcoming the risks and coming up with loads of research so that a vaccine is developed asap. We will discuss how close is the CDC to carrying out such roles in real life and is it that easy to have control in situations like these?


RISK ASSESSMENT: It is the term used when you’re identifying hazards and health risks associated with something which is very vital during an outbreak to protect millions of people. This also requires tracking people who are infected and tracking the first-ever person infected as we saw in contagion. There was a whole scene of risk assessment being carried out from 18:00 to 20:15. (ccohs/risk assessment)


RISK COMMUNICATION: The exchange of vital information about the threat between the health experts and the people facing the threat. It involves multiple messages about the nature of risk and other messages (not strictly about risk) that express concerns, opinions, or reactions to risk messages or to legal and institutional arrangements for the management of risk. (ScienceDirect/risk communication) . Without this wrong information or rumors would spread out confusing people creating a lot of chaos like it happened in the starting of corona when everyone thought we’re in some sort of apocalypse where stores would run out of tissue papers. Even the trump statement about drinking Dettol to kill corona was a miscommunication endangering people's lives. We saw examples of this in the movie too when people would fight for the fake medication to treat the diseases causing so much damage. We saw stores looted, cars damaged and streets all messy. This is how important communication is. Also in the movie, it was seen how not giving enough information out to the public and the public getting to know the same information through some other person who leaks it makes them trust that person who was actually a fraud more rather than the authorities.

Blunders by the CDC during the actual pandemic was when their testing kits failed. In February when they were to send out the testing kits, many of them were found to have faults. The main question is how can such experienced institutes who have practiced PCR testing can go on making such silly mistakes. Not just silly but worse for people who were tested positive even though they did not have the covid creating panic and tension between them. (Why the CDC botched its coronavirus testing/technology review). In March it was known that while other countries were testing millions of people CDC only tested some thousand people in the US only. Whereas in the movie, CDC tracked all of the people, brought them into quarantine, and took every single patient seriously. They came up with an effective vaccine for such a deadly disease just within a few weeks because the trial was rushed when the worker injected to examine herself when in reality this can never happen. The number#1 rule of healthcare risk management is to focus on patients' safety and have no medical errors that jeopardize the goal of that management. There was a US times report which stated how they refused to test one California woman just cause she hasn’t traveled overseas. Downplaying that case to not create a panic that covid is actually spreading within the US too after she was tested positive. Risk management in health care can mean the difference between life and death, which makes the stakes significantly higher (Coronavirus Diagnosis in California Highlights Testing Flaws/NYTimes). Health officials flooded CDC with questions but there were no responses in late February when dozens were already infected creating chaos leaving people unanswered shows a sign of miscommunication. They also reversed the test guidance saying those without symptoms don’t need to get tested. Dr. Sara Cody, the public health officer in Santa Clara County, California, was bewildered. Testing is critical on COVID-19 because symptoms alone are not a guide to who poses a risk of spreading infection, she said. (How the CDC failed public health officials fighting the coronavirus/USAToday). However, CDC might be somewhat close to being as efficient as they were in Contagion.

In discovering the source of sickness, gathering information, and passing it on to the researchers for developing a vaccine. They played a vital role in awarding the people on how to be careful and the steps of taking precautions to avoid the virus. They’re also following steps to trace the virus and contacting the ones who are at risk, the steps are:

  • Step 1: Rapid Notification of Exposure
  • Step 2: Contact Interview
  • Step 2a: Testing and Quarantine/Isolation Instructions
  • Step 2b: Assessing Self-Quarantine Support Needs
  • Step 3: Medical Monitoring
  • Step 4: Contact Close Out
The CDC also released information about the virus to the public. The assessment carried out throughout the pandemic to determine risks and how to avoid them has been quite informational and helpful. Since 1900 vaccines have been developed and licensed against 21 other diseases. Most of their researches about different things like sleep, obesity, etc has been helpful to people in the past and still is. (CDC) Even in the movie, it was something people rely on, CDC officials tracking patients and interviewing them really makes us feel for them, how they risk their lives at the frontline for us. As we have discussed in class as well how risk communication will always be a factor that will always have to be analyzed and there will always be a grey area, giving out information to the right public at the right time requires careful consideration cause as we have seen in the movie that even the slightest bit of miscommunication can lead to so much chaos and deaths all around disrupting everything causing big damage that stays there for the long term.

In my opinion, risk assessment and risk communication. These two are carried out by big organizations like CDC with whom people have a lot of expectations and hope that they wouldn't risk their lives instead of helping them overcome those risks. Being heavily funded by the government I think it can do better but this is the reason organizations like these have a lot of pressure on them as we saw in contagion as well and no matter how much they look into the situation there will always be a case of miscommunication around the world. They put their lives at risk to track and get more findings of the pandemic. Risk assessment has been good and vital but risk communication on the other hand has remained poor. Having mixed feelings about this and looking at the past outbreaks there was some success in making vaccines and fighting deadly viruses so we still have some hope and there is still a long road ahead of improvement in such areas when facing a pandemic.

References:
‘Risk assessment’ CCOHS 2017 https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/risk_assessment.html. Accessed 7 Nov 2020
‘Why the CDC botched its coronavirus testing’ MIT Technology Review, March 5
2020
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/05/905484/why-the-cdc-botched-i
ts-coronavirus-testing/. Accessed 7 Nov 2020
‘Coronavirus Diagnosis in California Highlights Testing Flaw’, Feb 28, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/health/coronavirus-testing-california.html. Accessed 7 Nov 2020
‘How the CDC failed public health officials fighting the coronavirus’ Sep 18, 2020, 3435762001 Accessed 7 Nov 2020.
Coronavirus tracing CDC https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/contact-tracing-plan/contact-tracing.html#anchor_1590011

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