Contagion Could Happen Every Flu Season

OMG, we all saw Contagion this weekend, yes? I could watch Gwyneth Paltrow die all day, every day. God bless Steven Soderbergh.

Contagion is my kind of taut and un-dumbed-down thriller. Because massive die-offs from a disease epidemic are much more likely (and perhaps warranted) than a zombie apocalypse. We are waaaaaaay overdue for a plague of some sort—making it a whole century with only one really nasty global flu pandemic is unheard of. That shit is real.

And even if things don’t get Contagion bad (just yet), Americans get sick in the millions every cold and flu season. And that’s a problem.

Case in point:

As the new blockbuster film Contagion, a thriller about a global pandemic, finishes its first weekend at the box office, activists from across the country are releasing an online video called Contagion: Not Just a Movie. The web film, produced by Family Values @ Work, shows the stories of five American workers [including Tasha, a Seattle-area Safeway cashier] who have been forced to go into work when they are sick because they weren’t allowed to take off or couldn’t afford going without pay…. These workers are some of the 44 million Americans without paid sick days who risk their families’ financial security or their jobs if they stay home when they are ill.

Everybody knows that if you’re sick, it is in everyone’s best interest that you stay home and reduce the risk of infecting others. Too bad then that in this economy, taking unpaid time off is not a viable option for many, even when they are severely sick. Here’s a little factoid from the IWPR to give you pause: “Three in four food service workers, three in five personal health care workers, and three in four child care workers, all of whom have significant interaction with others, do not have paid sick days.” Yowza. That’s not a good idea, for all of society. Simply put, a paid sick days policy is the reasonable and prudent thing to do.

Closer to home, the local branch of FV@W, Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce has been lobbying for sick days, and just yesterday afternoon, the Seattle City Council passed a paid sick days bill. (We already noted that Dick Conlin was the only member of the Council to vote no.)

The Philadelphia City Council is expected to vote on another bill later this week, which is also expected to pass. Those hippies in San Francisco, DC, and Milwaukee already have laws on the books, and many more municipalities (among them Connecticut, Denver, Massachusetts, New York City, and Georgia) should have bills on the docket for votes this fall.