3D illustration of lyme disease bacteria
Photo Credit: WebMD

Allow me to warn my readers who may not yet have seen the film Contagion, that the following synopsis may contain spoilers:

Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a young woman seen coughing. She is in an airport lounge when she gets a call on her cell phone. It is a man named John Neal (John G. Beck) saying she just had sex with him and left without saying goodbye. Beth says she's sorry, she was afraid she'd miss her flight. "Well in case I don't see you again... it was great to see you again." John says. Beth echoes the sentiment. John mentions that if she wants to contact him, she'll have to use the secure email address. She hangs up as her flight is called and she pays her bar tab.

A montage ensues where we see several other people. A young man in Hong Kong gets off a boat, sweating. He goes home to his family and his sister looks at him concerned.

In London, a model gets sick and goes back to her hotel room. Hotel staff come into the room and find her dead on the bathroom floor.

On a plane, a businessman comes out of the lavatory with a pained expression on his face. He is traveling back home to Tokyo. He is on a bus when he collapses to the floor, convulsing. His death is captured on a camera phone.

The young man from Hong Kong, leaves his apartment, coughing near several people in an elevator. He walks the streets, his vision getting more hazy. He walks into traffic and is hit by a truck and killed.

The film illustrates the danger that modern, high-speed transportation presents in assisting the distribution of diseases that in past centuries would have been localized and slower to spread.

Those who enjoy reading history in order to avoid repeating it will recall the 1918 Flu Pandemic which killed anywhere from 50 to 130 million people. Although WWI did not cause the flu, there is little doubt that "the close troop quarters and massive troop movements hastened the pandemic... Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease." [Wikipedia]

Likewise the aggressive ideology of Islam was contained for many centuries until the present era. Sadly, travel to infidel countries is now very easy for vectors of that pernicious disease (also known as Muslims) and we see that they have infested almost every country of the world.