Humanity has a strange fascination with its own demise. Apocalyptic stories captivate audiences across all forms of media; The Walking Dead showed us yet another zombie outbreak, Margaret Atwood showed us a world dying from infertility in The Handmaid’s Tale, and Plague Inc. and Pandemic both are games that hinge on destroying humanity by creating the perfect superbug. Outbreak predates Pandemic by more than 10 years, but appeals to the same part of humanity that is fascinated by things that could destroy us. The movie gives audience a largely invisible antagonist, instead showing the overblown effects of the fictional Motaba virus, and microscope-produced images that look strikingly similar to its real life counterpart, Ebola, another dangerous viral disease originating near Zaire. Along with sharing a point of origin, as well as both causing hemorrhagic fever, both diseases are relatively new, with Motaba being created in the 1950s and Ebola being discovered in 1976, and have relatively high mortality rates, with Motaba being a more extreme disease that infects and kills much faster. However, the infection and mortality rates of a Zaire-based disease are far from the only things that were sensationalized in the movie.
Along with apocalyptic tales, society loves stories that make them distrust the people who are supposed to be protecting them, which is key plot point in Outbreak. USAMRIID and the CDC are the groups that the American public trust to keep them safe from disease, but Outbreak plants the idea that those groups would work harder to cover their own tracks and protect their image than to save lives. While this sounds outlandish, it is not terribly unfounded; the United States military exposed over 800,000 people in San Francisco to an airborne bacteria, hospitalized at least 10 people. Still, there is a notable difference between exposing 800,000 people to a relatively tame bacteria and creating a disease that kills with reckless abandon, and then covering up that disease by killing the infected and everyone who knew about it.
Outbreak isn’t without its moments of accuracy however, with the Zaire witch doctor representing public and religious resistance to modern medication, and a return to holistic medications. It also shows, with a fair amount of accuracy, the various biohazard level labs, even if the scientists within them repeatedly show an alarming disregard for protocol and safety. Outbreak also demonstrates how humans can cause unexpected disease transmission through travel or, in this case, animal smuggling. Additionally, the CDC wanted to avoid causing a panic with an unnecessary alert, echoing how in the real world, humans are very susceptible to alarmism, as shown by the response to the 2016 Ebola outbreak.
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Overall, while the movie may have gotten audiences to take diseases a bit more seriously, it mostly served to provide 2 hours of entertainment at the expense of the field of public health. One could argue that no press is bad press, but the sharks that were killed due to public concern following the release of Jaws would likely disagree. The antagonist of Outbreak is meant to solely be the Motaba virus, but public health officials became a secondary villain once it was revealed that the deaths were directly caused by USAMRIID, and then again when the audience learns what they did to cover up the first outbreak, and finally when they were willing to do it again, but this time on American soil. However, when all is said and done, I do have to honestly say that I vigorously washed my hands after the end of the movie.
