This article examines the pandemic depicted in the film Contagion and the meaning of its striking tagline, “Fear spreads faster than a virus.”
Drawing on Jacques Attali’s statement that the economy must be redirected along entirely new lines, it questions the fundamental transformation of the global order, economy, and society taking place amid the coronavirus crisis.

July 1, 2020
“The economy must be redirected along entirely new lines.
In a wartime economy, companies had to switch their production from automobiles to bombs and fighter aircraft,” he said.
His words indirectly told us that “we are now at war.”
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
It is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that Keiko Kawasoe is currently the most brilliant and incisive writer in the world.
“Fear” Spreads Faster Than a Virus
Amid the present coronavirus crisis, the 2011 film Contagion has also attracted attention, with people asking whether it was a prophecy or a forewarning.
According to The New York Times, the film ranked 270th among Warner Bros. titles in terms of online access last year, but by March of this year, it had risen to second place, behind only the Harry Potter series.
Access to the film has also increased rapidly in Japan.
The story is as follows.
A new virus spreads at an astonishing speed, plunging the entire world into a state of panic.
Even Americans, who have no customary habit of wearing masks, begin wearing them and rush to stockpile goods.
Patient zero is an American woman who visited Hong Kong on a business trip.
The story assumes that a highly lethal new virus emerged when “a pig virus and a bat virus entered the human body and attached themselves to receptors in respiratory cells and cells of the central nervous system.”
Officials of the World Health Organization and epidemiologists struggle to prevent the infection from spreading.
The content of the film itself was striking, but I reacted even more strongly to its tagline.
“Fear spreads faster than a virus.”
Could “fear,” rather than the virus itself, be a monster with a special and reliable power of infection that enables it to dominate human beings?
It should also be noted that fear can spread even when people never meet one another directly.
I investigated the background of Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the screenplay for Contagion.
He appears to be a major figure, having been involved in the production of An Inconvenient Truth, the Academy Award-winning documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore.
A recent interview with Burns appeared in Vulture, published by New York magazine.
Burns said the following.
“In making this film, I met with epidemiologists, Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalists, and other experts, and listened extensively to what they had to say.”
“There had also been a major outbreak of a new strain of influenza in the United States in 2009, before filming began, and this provided us with a great deal of useful information.”
“Director Steven Soderbergh also conducted thorough research, interviewing people at the WHO and visiting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Burns also said that he had received messages on social media from people he did not understand.
He described them as asking questions such as, “Can you travel into the future?” “Do you have access to God?” and “Are you a member of the Illuminati, the secret society?” together with other bizarre nonsense.
His involvement in the production of An Inconvenient Truth suggests that he may be “close” to the center of global power.
However, I do not believe that he possesses the ability to travel into the future or gain access to God.
In the interview, Burns said, “All I can say is that it comes down to whether you have insight into what is happening and what may happen next.”
He also said, “When conceiving a film and writing a screenplay, there are three indispensable elements, particularly when dealing with a virus.”
Those three elements are “the route of transmission,” “the incubation period,” and “the mortality rate.”
He explained that even a slight change in any one of these three factors would alter the entire impression created by the film.
As a nonfiction writer, I cannot exaggerate when I write.
Nevertheless, I was reminded that this freedom is one of the great attractions of being a novelist or screenwriter.
However, even if a new virus were not particularly dangerous and differed little from an ordinary seasonal influenza that kills only a very small proportion of those infected, the sudden reported deaths of prominent figures would reinforce the public image of death.
Moreover, if the mass media and commentators repeatedly reported that “another certain number of people have been infected,” “the virus is highly contagious,” and “the medical system could collapse,” such reporting would contribute to the transmission of fear.
On Saturday, April 11, at 11:00 p.m., NHK Educational Television broadcast a program entitled “Emergency Dialogue: The World Transformed by the Pandemic—Perspectives from Leading Thinkers Overseas.”
One of the opinion leaders appearing on the program was Jacques Attali, a noted economist and thinker who has served as an adviser to successive French presidents.
Attali is said to be a member of the “deep state,” identified with international financial capital and the Jewish left.
Various signs of how the world may develop from this point onward can be detected in Attali’s remarks.
During the program, he said, “The economy must be redirected along entirely new lines.
In a wartime economy, companies had to switch their production from automobiles to bombs and fighter aircraft.”
His words indirectly told us that “we are now at war.”
He also stated, “If we look at history, humanity makes great advances only when it experiences fear.”
Like the tagline of the film Contagion mentioned above, he calmly and coldly declared that a mental state of fear makes people easiest to manipulate.
Attali further stated that “people have little capacity to think about the future and are forgetful.”
Does this mean that the world will be transformed into a new one by sustaining a permanent atmosphere of fear?
Fortunately, despite all the misfortune, it is difficult to say that a highly lethal strain of the Wuhan virus had spread deeply and widely throughout Japan at that point.
Epidemiologists and other specialists said, “Japan performed exceptionally well in epidemic prevention, but there may still be a second wave of infections.”
However, if we become preoccupied only with such short-sighted warnings, Japan may be struck directly by the aftershocks of a Great Depression originating in China.
The Japanese people are first made afraid of the virus, as fear is stirred within their subconscious minds.
They are then encouraged to restrain economic activity under the gentle slogan “Stay Home.”
This is effective because Japanese people obey rules and think, “If I test positive, I will cause trouble for those around me, and I will be ashamed.”
Next come remote work and social distancing, weakening the economy and severing human relationships between companies and employees, as well as among people more generally.
Beyond that lie corporate bankruptcies, mass dismissals, unemployment, and an increase in suicides among the owners of small and medium-sized businesses.
Could Japan be caught in a scheme designed to force fundamental change through precisely this sequence of events?
Attali stated that “the coronavirus will completely transform the world order.”
Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and one of the most powerful figures in America, who observed the world for nearly a century, also declared that “there will be no return to the previous age.”
Movements and statements advocating the fundamental transformation—or deliberate remaking—of the world order have become standard in developed countries.
This is different from Japan’s position as a defeated nation more than seventy years ago, when atomic bombs were dropped and countless precious lives were lost.
Nevertheless, until a new century-long order begins operating in earnest, will we Japanese continue walking through a “dimly lit tunnel” while our necks are slowly tightened by a silken cord?
To be continued.