Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the classic film "Contagion" returns to the online hot list

It’s been nearly a decade since Steven Soderbergh’s medical thriller Contagion hit theaters, but even as concerns about the novel coronavirus grow, it’s now in the top 10 rentals on iTunes in the U.S. It’s also reportedly the second-most popular Warner Bros. film of 2020.

To understand how the virus spreads, people have turned to movies. The fictional virus MEV-1 in the movie "Contagion" is obviously much more deadly than COVID-19 and more Hollywood.

“We’re not trying to scare people and say they’re all going to die,” Contagion producer Michael Shamberg told Buzzfeed following the film’s new streaming life. “We’re trying to scare people in a way that they believe there’s something that can be done.

"This is a carefully crafted cautionary tale. We were right on the science."

In the film, Beth, played by "Little Pepper" Gwyneth Paltrow, returned to Minneapolis from a business trip in Hong Kong, China. However, she suffered from epilepsy the next day after returning home. Although she was rushed to the hospital for rescue, she unfortunately died in the end. An official from the US CDC believed that Beth was the "patient zero" of MEV-1. The crazy spread of the virus has plunged Minneapolis, the entire United States and even the world into chaos. In order to solve this dilemma, scientists work day and night to develop a vaccine. Fortunately, Dr. Hextall, played by Jennifer Ehle, successfully obtained a vaccine.