As cooped-up film watchers have taken macabre refuge in the pandemic movie Contagion, the scientist who lent his expertise to the 2011 thriller has corralled the original star-studded cast to help fight coronavirus.
In a series of homemade public service announcements, actress Kate Winslet soaps up on camera asking viewers to wash their hands like their lives depend on it, Matt Damon begs people to stay six feet from each other and Laurence Fishburne warns that half the population could contract coronavirus.
“Frankly, we’re in trouble,” Ian Lipkin, the 67-year-old virologist and physician behind the new segments and the movie, said in an interview with the Financial Times. More deadly viruses will emerge in future, he believes, and a series of government mis-steps has helped spread the current one around the world at an alarming rate.