TORONTO — The writer of Contagion — a 2011 movie about the struggle to stop the spread of a deadly virus — said he’s more fearful of the reaction to Ebola than the disease itself.
“What scares me more than Ebola are the more mundane viruses of stupidity and fear and partisan politics,” said Scott Z. Burns.
Contagion, which starred Matt Damon and Marion Cotillard, explored how a global pandemic is fueled by hype and hysteria.
Burns, who did extensive research about infectious diseases to write the movie, said there is science to contain Ebola.
“There are really brilliant researchers who are capable of combating these diseases,” Burns told The Wrap. “The experts I talked to on the movie are not concerned about the science. They’re concerned about educating people, and about the media scaring people.”
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In the U.S. and Canada — with a combined population of 351 million people — there has been only one death from Ebola this year.
“When I did my research, all the experts told me that they expected there to be a pandemic of some kind of influenza, like we saw in World War I with Spanish Flu,” said Burns. “And this isn’t that. This is not what they would call the big one.”
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Burns said he has seen “a series of very big mistakes, starting with an incredibly inefficient and poorly orchestrated response when Ebola first appeared in West Africa, going through to the decision of a nurse with a fever to get on a commercial flight.”
The fictional virus in Contagion was new to humans but, he said, Ebola has been around for decades.
“Ebola is a disease we’ve had 40-some years of experience with, so what’s particularly alarming is that even with our experience we’re making a lot of rookie mistakes.”
BELOW: Watch the trailer for Contagion.
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