‘Contagion’ writer, scientific adviser reflect on film’s newfound relevance amid coronavirus crisis

Nothing spreads like fear.

Nine years after the release of Contagion, a Steven Soderbergh–directed epidemiology thriller bearing that tagline, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China’s Wuhan province—declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has since renamed the disease it causes COVID-19—has sent shock waves through the world’s economy and incited panic far from the disease’s apparent point of origin.