After returning from a business trip, Beth Enghoff (gwyneth paltrow) had sex with her ex-lover during a stopover in Chicago before returning to her home in Minneapolis. On the way, she developed cold symptoms. Clark, her son from her ex-husband, came home from school with symptoms. Two days later, Beth, whose condition deteriorated, fainted after suffering from severe epilepsy. She died after being rushed to the hospital by her husband Mickey (Matt Damon), but the cause of her seizure death is still unknown. Pathologists classify this disease as meningitis virus because it affects the brain and central nervous system. When Mickey came home, he found that Clark had died of similar symptoms. Mickey was then quarantined, but seemed immune to the disease. He and his ex-wife's daughter, Jory, tried to escape from this city full of patients, but the Wisconsin National Guard blocked the border to Minnesota, forcing them to return home and face decadent social order and rampant robbery. Jory doesn't know if he inherited Mickey's immunity. Mickey struggles with his inner helplessness and his desire to protect Jory, trying to hide his sadness over the death of his wife and stepson with knowledge.
In Atlanta, representatives of the US Department of Homeland Security met with Dr. Ellis Cheever (laurence fishburne) of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fearing that the disease would be used as a biological weapon with the intention of causing panic over the Thanksgiving weekend. Cheever sent Dr. Irene Mills (Kate Winslet), an official of the Epidemiology Intelligence Bureau, to Minneapolis for investigation. In addition to tracking Enghoff's illness, she must also negotiate with local officials who are unwilling to invest resources and organization in public health response. Dr. Mills came ill, and when the Minnesota National Guard arrived, the city was quarantined. Mills finally died in the on-site medical station she set up.
At the CDC, Ellie Guesta (played by Jennifer Eyre), the research on treatment scheme and vaccine was initially put on hold because scientists could not find the cell culture medium of the newly discovered meningitis virus 1 (MEV- 1). Sussman, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, ignored Cheever's orders and found the effective length of bat cells by destroying samples through Gesta. Then he used this breakthrough to find a possible vaccine. At first, the breeding base of the virus was 2, which infected two patients. After the virus mutation, the number increased to four, and 12 people were sick, and the mortality rate of infected people was 25-30%.
Allen Karen Wade (Jude Law) is a conspiracy theorist. He posted a film about the disease on his popular blog. In one of the blog posts, he seemed to be ill, and later claimed that he was cured by homeopathy produced by forsythia suspensa. People who believed his words flocked to pharmacies to look for forsythia suspensa, and infected people and healthy people gathered together, which accelerated the spread of germs. Karen Wade has attracted national attention. Karen Wade pointed out in a TV interview that Cheever had informed his friends and family to leave Chicago before he was quarantined, which cast a shadow on Cheever's reputation. Cheever told him that he would investigate Karen Wade's leaking information. Later, Cheever discovered that Karen Wade was not sick at all. He just wanted to meet the needs of investors' representatives who produced and sold homeopathic drugs. He was finally arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and securities fraud, and 1.2 million bloggers paid bail for him, which made him released soon.
Meanwhile, Dr. Guesta used attenuated viruses to identify potential vaccines. In order to bypass time and produce vaccines, informed consent is required under the standards of human research agreements. So when she and other vaccine researchers were vaccinated first, and then visited their seriously ill father in the hospital, they revealed their research on MEV- 1 and the test of the vaccine. The demand for successful vaccine production is increasing, which makes CDC draw lots to decide which day of the year to vaccinate newborns. When Dr Cheever calls to persuade his girlfriend to leave Chicago, he happens to be overheard by Roger (john hawkes), the cleaner, forcing Dr Cheever to vaccinate Roger's son through the back door. Gesta kept the remaining samples of MEV- 1 and H 1N 1 and SARS virus at low temperature. The number of people who died of the disease worldwide reached 26 million.
World Health Organization epidemiologist Dr Leonora Olantis (played by Mary Ang Goliath) goes to Hong Kong to trace the source of MEV- 1. Her partner is Sun Feng (Huang Jinghan), a local epidemiologist and public health official, who confirms that Beth is the source of infection. In view of the spread of the virus, Feng used the kidnapping of Orlandis as a lever to obtain MEV- 1 vaccine for his village. Olantis lived with the villagers for several months until the vaccine was released. Feng traded the vaccine for Otis. At the Hong Kong airport, her colleague casually mentioned that the vaccine in exchange was actually a placebo. Olantis, who is closely related to the villagers, immediately ran to warn them after hearing this encounter.
In the last few minutes, the flashback revealed the source of the virus: a man from Beth Company drove a bulldozer and ran into a palm tree where bats built their nests. The bat flew over a pigsty, threw a big banana into the pigsty and was eaten by the pig. This is the origin of MEV- 1 virus hybridization between bats and pigs. The next day, a large group of China chefs brought pigs from the same pigsty into the casino. A cook approached and told the cook who was cooking a pig that someone wanted to take a photo with him. Later, before going out to meet him, the chef wiped the apron with hands stained with pig blood and shook hands with Beth, making Beth the "patient zero" of MEV- 1 virus.
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