From literature and films, what did you expect and what did you not expect about a pandemic?

[KindergartenKop]

I'm quite a fan of apocalyptic books. There are a few things about the current pandemic which appear as tropes in this genre. For example, there are still buses with posters on advertising films released in March!

On the other hand, the books and films never warned me about the government floundering though this situation. In the books it all happens much more quickly and the government are usually all gone by week 3 (I get that in reality that would be a very bad thing though!)

What did you expect?

@Violetparis

I didn't expect a young, working class footballer to be a hero in the pandemic. Hope he's not going to be the only one.

I think Rashford is perfectly cast as the young good looking hero who saves the kids.

It’s just I thought his part would have more...action sequences?!

Yes good point, he needs more action than tweeting
(not downplaying what he's done at all, think he's wonderful, but it's not very Hollywood)

@WhistlersandJugglers

Who should have been sent to find the bat? I vote for Penelope Cruz and Jason Statham seeing as Spain and the UK were badly affected.

Surely Tom Hanks and a continental born young lady 35 years younger than him who he can smugly educate by presenting utter bollocks conspiracy theories as fact? Cut to them running through a Wuhan market with stereotypically Chinese people looking dodgy and he'll stop to explain the symbolism of the bat rather than getting the hell out of Dodge before the baddies arrive.

@Faircastle

death would be much quicker eg get symptoms, die a day later That is often the pattern for viruses in fictional pandemics: a very short incubation period; nearly everyone develops noticeable symptoms; it causes death within a couple of days if not hours.

In reality, a virus like that would be easier to contain than this one.

Can anyone remember The Satan Bug? Was fab. Pustulating boils and death in 90 seconds while scratching at the doors of the lab your colleague had locked you into.

I read it in the 70s at the time of the Botulism scare in the UK and was morbidly obsessed with boils and killer bugs for a while.

he'll stop to explain the symbolism of the bat

Ok I would like to see this now. Come on Dan Brown!

Based on this thread I've started to read station eleven. I'm still in the free sample and toilet paper has had a mention :)

It's a fabulous book!

Yes, and it should have mutated at least two or three times by now!
I thought it had? Once at least. I was working in a an NHS hospital pharmacy when bird flu started, and everyone was panicking-we were even measured for respirators, which never materialised; and all the panic died down. I rather hoped Covid would go a similar way.

How selfish people are. How what they WANT comes above saving lives.

How people place less value on the disabled and elderly, an example was a lady on here who thought all disabled/vulnerable/elderly people should be shut in their homes for the next few years as it isn’t fair her son can’t go to cricket camp.

How the word ‘mental health’ is used as an excuse to justify anything by lots of people.

How the risk isn’t zombies or people attacking your home but sadly for many it’s domestic violence or abuse within the home.

How the benefits system fails those who have fallen on hard times.

How communities pull together with complete strangers going out, waiting in long queues and doing mundane tasks like collecting prescriptions or shopping for complete strangers :)

How different things would be without wifi

Probably the story that came closest is this one: So Much Cooking about a food blogger in a bird flu pandemic.

I expected zombies. I did not expect it to last more than 120 minutes.

I expected a lot more Lynch mob type behaviour if you dared to cough in a public place.

Instead we have people screaming about others not wearing masks.

Where are the lynch mobs god dammit.

I too also thought it wouldn't be quite so bloody boring.

@GoldenOmber

Probably the story that came closest is this one: So Much Cooking about a food blogger in a bird flu pandemic.

That story was uncanny. Here's a commentary on it by the author, Naomi Kritzer, written in April of this year:

www.tor.com/2020/04/14/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictional-pandemic-becomes-reality/

I'm just disappointed they closed the pubs in the first wave so we couldn't make a crazed dash through a series of suburban back gardens to hole up in the Winchester.

Pork scratchings, anyone?

I was expecting more hot doctors. Not hot because of cheap ill fitting PPE but sexy, life saving hunks and glamorous swishy haired babes. All highly skilled but simultaneously very good looking.

Where are the hot doctors?

I'd hoped it would be zombies.

I didn't expect the sheer amount of conspiracy theorists and covid-deniers and "masks are muzzles". Tbf they still baffle me nearly 9 months in.

@ThePlantsitter I have seen graffiti saying "Blood on Govt's hands", in London.

Thinking about how boring it is, people who have been on Big Brother have sometimes said how boring it was; it's not like how it appears on TV at all.

I never expected the outrage at two cucumbers in the script

@tattooedmummy1

I'd hoped it would be zombies.

I didn't expect the sheer amount of conspiracy theorists and covid-deniers and "masks are muzzles". Tbf they still baffle me nearly 9 months in.

to be honest we still don't know everything about the virus........there could be zombies yet

There needed to be a spare of deaths in a big Western city, then a mass fleeing and road blocks, people getting past and spreading it.

The TV station and news channels seen to go quite quickly so no endless sitting around watching spreadsheets and politicians.

People aren't dying in the street and in not aware of mass looting

Like you've all said, they couldn't make a film of it, because it would be so friggin boring.

halloweenghostlyhare God I hope so!

Smug me thought 'thank goodness we'll never have a pandemic ever again' 😂
Then when the pandemic kicked off I thought that everything would be done & dusted by Easter 🤦‍♀️

Now nothing surprises me & yes it's really boring 🤷‍♀️

I have an actual zombie plan.

I'd throw our elderly bad-tempered matriarch cat at them then run. She sees off foxes and our neighbour's rottweiler. Zombies would be no match.

(And she loves a good scuffle so she would not mind at all).

In Stephen King's The Stand people were tearing down weather stations as they thought that was the cause of the deadly virus. Surely people aren't that stupid in real life....oh yeah 5g masts torn down!
I would have expected groups of semi feral people, in cool Walking Dead type outfits forming gangs, lots of helicopters and more haz mat suits.