Mass Panic
One of the film's main themes is mass panic, and what can happen when there is an outbreak of disease on a global scale. Because the virus is so inconsistent but also deadly, and because it throws life into such chaos, a great deal of social, political, and economic panic ensues. Throughout the film we see images of panicked responses to the emergency of the virus, with people looting grocery stores, buying guns, and looking out for themselves in desperate and terrifying ways.
One of the main examples of the panic is represented by the rush to purchase forsythia when Krumwiede spreads the rumor that the plant is a cure for the virus. With little guidance from the state, people rush into stores demanding forsythia, determined to find immunity from the terrifying disease. Violence, looting, and a general distrust of others permeates various cities as the threat of the virus becomes scarier.
The Scientific Process of Combating Disease
In the movie, we are able to see the way in which scientists combat a pandemic from the very first moments to the final discovery of a cure or vaccine. We also see how different scientific organizations work together in order to bring about the fastest resolution.
The film shows that one of the most important things is identifying Patient Zero, the first person who is known to have contracted the disease. This enables scientists to find out how it is contracted and spread, so that people can be more informed about how to avoid and treat the disease. In spite of the apocalyptic panic that Soderbergh depicts among the general public, he also seeks to portray the efficacy of science, and the bravery of the scientists who spearhead research.
Duty
The film also takes a close look at the theme of duty, whether that be duty to one's job, to the public, or to one's family. There are many examples of this. Cheever is a respected scientist, but he warns a loved one about the disease before Chicago is quarantined, thereby enabling her to leave and hopefully avoid contracting the virus. He feels a duty to her that supersedes, and in some ways conflicts with, his duty to his profession. Contrastingly, Erin Mears, who travels to Minnesota early on, bravely faces the threat of illness and death in order to collect data about the disease, dying for the sake of her research.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the usually buttoned-up, respectable government officer Sun Feng changes into someone prepared to commit a crime to save his village. His duty to the law and to his role in the government takes a back seat to his duty to care for his community, pushing him to act in a way that he would not have acted before.
Protection
In the face of the pandemic, each of the characters must protect themselves and their loved ones. The most notable example of a character who exemplifies protection in the film is Mitch Emhoff, who must keep his daughter Jory safe, after losing both his wife and their son to the disease. While he knows that he is immune to the disease, he is not sure if Jory has the same strength, and so does everything he can to keep her home and protected from the virus. Throughout the film, we see many characters seeking to protect the people they love, as well as tap into a sense of obligation and protection for humanity as a whole.
Opportunism
Alan Krumwiede is a freelance journalist who seeks to benefit from the pandemic by selling his own snake oil and spreading lies and conspiracy theories. He insists that forsythia is a cure for the virus even though this is not the case, and makes millions of dollars from selling this information. Eventually, the law catches up to him and he is charged with fraud. His character represents the fact that in times of disaster there will inevitably be people who take advantage of public fear and panic and try and skew it to their benefit.
Medicine and Politics
The film depicts the ways that pandemics and issues of public health are not simply scientific or social phenomena, but issues that are affected by geopolitics. Various state agencies must work together to help mitigate the virus; however, it is often the individuals who are working outside of governmentally-sanctioned structures that affect real change. For instance, the vaccine comes about when Dr. Sussman goes against the orders of the state to identify the cell culture that Dr. Hextall uses to develop the vaccine.
Additionally, we see how politics and global economics play into access to care, when Sun Feng kidnaps Dr. Orantes in exchange for early access to the vaccine, which he knows that his small impoverished village would never receive otherwise. Furthermore, at the end of the film, when we see how the virus originates, we see that the pandemic begins because of human beings' disturbance of the natural world, which displaces the bat the infects that pig that then begins the viral spread. Disease and medicine are as much about politics and economics as they are about science, the film shows us.
Loss and the Fragility of Human Life
While it is often not dwelt on for very long, the stakes of the film are centered around the devastating effects of loss. The film begins with Beth Emhoff dying of the disease in mysterious ways, and then her young son dying in the same way. The closest person the film has to a protagonist is Mitch Emhoff, a widower who must remain strong after suffering a devastating loss. The disease is so terrifying and causes so much panic because it exposes the fragility of human life.
