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Its a tricky situation for a government.
A lot of the things you warned us about are now coming true.
What have the past few weeks been like for you?
What have you been telling them?Generally what I tell them is Im not a doctor.
Im not a public-health professional.
I know really wonderful ones who helped me withContagion,Dr.
Ian Lipkin at Columbia University, and Dr. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist in the Bay Area.
Listening to really smart public-health officials is the best thing you could do right now.
And observing fundamental things like social distancing, washing your hands frequently, and staying home if youre sick.
Are you surprised by how flat-footed the United States seems to have been caught by this?Yes.
I stayed in touch with the consultants on the movie, and became friends with a lot of them.
What did you think ofTrumps addressthe other night?I dont understand why my country doesnt have testing.
He certainly didnt explain that to me.
Hes reversed his own course two or three times about the seriousness of this illness.
So I dont quite understand why banning travel from Europe is going to help people here.
That just seems ludicrous.
But thats what we have.
How did you and your experts design ofContagions virus?
You nailed the bat part.Our virus, MEV-1, was not a coronavirus.
Were there scarier or more dramatic things you wanted to do that your experts vetoed?No.
So from the beginning, I knew that I had to stay within the lines of what was possible.
COVID-19 is most dangerous in older people.
The response becomes so overwhelming that your lungs fill up with your own fluids.
It depends on what the immunological response is.
But we [in the U.S.] put our old people together in nursing homes.
Contagions Jude Law character was especially prescient a conspiracy theorist selling a fake homeopathic cure.
Alex Jones is apparentlyselling toothpaste he claims can kill coronavirus.I hadnt heard that.
I really hope that the administration is allowing him to speak freely.
It was Soderbergh, me, and the scientists I worked with.
And we got rid of polio.
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