Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak

Last updated
Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak
Genre Documentary
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes6
Production
Running time287 minutes (total)
Original release
ReleaseJanuary 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)

Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak is a 2020 American documentary series about pandemics. It was released on Netflix on January 22, 2020. [1] The series covers a range of issues such as the possibility of an influenza pandemic, research into achieving a universal vaccine, emerging viruses, anti-vaxxers, and the Ebola outbreak in Africa. It features several notable health and science experts, including Syra Madad, Ron Klain, and Raghu Sharma. [2] It has attracted particular media attention due to being released just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. [3] [4]

Contents

Reception

Brigid Delaney of The Guardian found the "eerily timed" series "informative, inspiring, visually stunning and a great piece of storytelling". She was also "moved to tears multiple times" by the "kindness and dedication of those who work in the field". [5] James Jackson of The Times thought the coronavirus outbreak "gives an extra reason to watch what's a valuable six-parter underpinned by strong storytelling as it follows doctors risking their lives in contagious conditions", giving it four stars out of five. [6] Brad Newsome of The Sydney Morning Herald found the series compelling initially when it covers how doctors and public health officials deal with the seasonal flu, but less so "as the series broadens its focus" and "begins to slow". [7]

Episodes

No.TitleOriginal air date
1"It Hunts Us"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
In this introduction to life on the front lines, doctors in the U.S. and Asia battle the flu, and researchers race to develop a universal vaccine.
2"Pandemic Is Now"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
Vaccine debates rage while health-care workers inoculate against the Ebola virus in Congo and influenza in detainee camps at the U.S.-Mexico border.
3"Seek, Don't Hide"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
Worldwide, scientists test animals and their handlers for emerging viruses. In the U.S. and India, doctors work long hours caring for flu patients.
4"Hold On to Your Roots"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
Anti-vaccine debate escalates, and medical staff are attacked in Congo. Funding cuts hit hard in the U.S., but researchers in Guatemala make strides.
5"Prayers Might Work"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
Around the world, community, family and faith help physicians and medical advocates stay strong in the face of long hours and a relentless disease.
6"Don't Stop Now"January 22, 2020 (2020-01-22)
Successes for some balance setbacks for others. Meanwhile, viral outbreaks continue to claim lives across the globe — and a larger pandemic looms.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pandemic</span> Widespread, often global, epidemic of severe infectious disease

A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quarantine</span> Epidemiological intervention to prevent disease transmission

A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been exposed to a communicable disease, yet do not have a confirmed medical diagnosis. It is distinct from medical isolation, in which those confirmed to be infected with a communicable disease are isolated from the healthy population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social distancing</span> Infection control technique by keeping a distance from each other

In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. It usually involves keeping a certain distance from others and avoiding gathering together in large groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Evans</span> Australian conspiracy theorist

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<i>Sick Note</i> (TV series) 2017 British TV series or programme

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic</span> Pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2

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The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia was a part of the worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 January 2020, in Victoria, when a man who had returned from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, tested positive for the virus. As of 6 August 2022, Australia has reported over 11,350,000 cases and 19,265 deaths, with Victoria's 2020 second wave having the highest fatality rate per case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syra Madad</span> American pathogen preparedness expert

Syra Madad is an American pathogen preparedness expert and infectious disease epidemiologist. Madad is the Senior Director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health + Hospitals where she is part of the executive leadership team which oversees New York City's response to the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the city's 11 public hospitals. She was featured in the Netflix documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak and the Discovery Channel documentary The Vaccine: Conquering COVID.

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Jacob Eli Gunn Glanville is an American computational immunoengineer and businessperson. He is co-founder and chief executive officer of the start-up company Distributed Bio and its spin-out, Centivax. Glanville was featured in the documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak. Glanville was born in The Dalles, Oregon and raised in Guatemala to American expatriate parents. His mother is an artist and his father an inn keeper. In 2007, Glanville graduated from University of California, Berkeley where he studied genetics, Genomics, and Development in the Molecular and Cellular Biology program and conducted research in the Glenys Thomsom HLA population genetics laboratory and Kimmen Sjolander Berkeley Phylogenomics group. In 2008, he joined Pfizer and was promoted to staff scientist four years later. In 2012, Glanville founded Distributed Bio and became the first Computational and Systems Immunology Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. He completed his doctorate in 2017. His doctoral advisors were Scott D. Boyd and Mark M. Davis. Glanville's dissertation was titled Reading the adaptive receptor repertoires. Microbiologist Sarah Ives is his research co-lead at Distributed Bio on the influenza project featured in Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak.

Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SARS-CoV-2 survives in the air and has served on several provincial committees advising aspects of the Government of Ontario's pandemic response.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in popular culture</span> References to the COVID-19 pandemic in popular culture

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References

  1. "Netflix's January 2020 list: New seasons of 'Grace and Frankie,' 'Sabrina'". USA Today. December 11, 2019.
  2. Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak , retrieved 2020-04-11
  3. Rose, Steve (March 12, 2020). "Coronavirus: when binge-watching goes viral". The Guardian. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  4. Sindreu, Jon (March 19, 2020). "People Confined for a Pandemic Can't Get Enough of Pandemics". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  5. Delaney, Brigid (February 5, 2020). "Pandemic: Netflix's new series about global outbreaks is eerily timed, and moved me to tears". The Guardian. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  6. Jackson, James (12 February 2020). "The Split – plausible? No, but it is infuriatingly watchable". The Times.
  7. Newsome, Brad (18 March 2020). "Meet those already working to protect us from an influenza pandemic". The Sydney Morning Herald.