The News

Soderbergh On Contagion

By Ray Pride

May 21, 2020

Steven Soderbergh: “Yeah, it’s been weird in the ways that it’s tracked with what epidemiologists told us ten years ago would be the most likely scenario for a new pandemic. In that regard, it was not surprising. What’s been fascinating is to watch the reaction to this virus emerging. The good news is, this will get solved. I’ve met the people who are responsible for trying to figure this stuff out, some of them I’m still working with today as I try to coordinate the Directors Guild taskforce on how to get the movie industry back to work. I tell you right now, this will get solved. This will get solved. I’ve met these people. I’ve worked with them. They’re very smart and this will get solved. The key is to manage expectations about how that’s going to get solved, and when it’s gonna get solved. In terms of the entertainment industry, I know there’s a way to get people back to work safely, and it’s going to become a matter of resources. I’m hoping that as time goes by, the availability of testing will cease to become an issue. That scarcity will go away. That’s going to be the key… When you test negative, people have to remember, that’s when you’re not spreading it. It doesn’t mean you’re not getting it. That’s where the mask thing comes into play. And for people who downplay that, the mask thing works. They’ve done studies during SARS to show that the effect with just a simple mask: two things, it keeps you from spewing it, but it also makes you conscious of how it spreads. This is how it spreads: You. Touch. Your. Face. That’s it. It enters through your mouth, your nose and your eyes. Period! So if you’re more conscious of that… So yeah, it’s been interesting to see something that all the virologists and all the epidemiologists told us would start in a wet market in Asia, and probably involve a bat, all of them said that! And it’s been weird to see that play out exactly.”

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