Pandemia globale

A good show to watch to make people aware of a situation that can turn into a reality, this show, highlights and shows all of our past mistakes and also make sure to show how to tackle these issues and how to stay cool calm and collected under bad circumstances. This is not acting and this is not made up, this show, are showing us the real and cold world, how people are living. how people are working, dying and much much more. They really highlight the real heroes in our world, and show us how much people are actually working for our greater good. A really good choice to release this show right now because of what situation the world is in right now, this show is eye opening and made me and will probably make others realize aswell how easy it is for us to get ourselfs into such a situation. Make sure to stay quarantined guys!!

First a quick review. This documentary takes on a great topic, then beats the hell out of it. The threat of a pandemic is real and seeing what is being done to help prevent it is interesting and educating. The people who work hard to help prevent widespread disease outbreaks are often motivated altruistically and use science as a main tool. You get to see a lot of this in the show, Which is good, but it tends to be redundant . You also get to see a lot of things you may not be expecting such as personal lives, descriptions of religious beliefs, extracurricular activities, etc. This may not be such a bad thing, but it is done to an extent that leaves the movie jumping between important scientific endeavor within the context of public health, and somewhat disjointed and rather uninteresting topics outside the realm of what the movie claims to be. A "6" is an honest ranking that doesn't pump it up, and doesn't push it too undeservedly low. Next, comments on the widely varying reviews. Because this movie/series Decides to touch on topics and ideas that are outside the realm of public health and safety, many reviewers seem to feel a need to criticize it for going against, or supporting certain political, religious, or other believes. Giving this show a 1/10 or a 10/10 rating is absolutely silly. It seems that anti-vaxers can't stand it because it goes directly against their "beliefs" regardless of reality and science. People giving it a 10 seem to be doing so simply because they don't like that some people gave it a low ranking. If you like good documentaries you'll probably feel it's ok, not great. if you are in public health or science in general, you may like it even more. If you're politically sensitive or anti-vaxer, you probably won't like it.

I'm usually pretty generous with my ratings (not to the extreme, but I'll lean one star to the right when in doubt), but this just seemed way off to me. And, yes I watched the whole season. There was virtually very little to zero science. It was mostly a reality show following healthcare providers and researchers. The healthcare providers were just very generic (a doc in a rural community, one in a sort of refugee detainment center, etc.). Some of this was loosely tied to how hard it is to get flu vaccines in and funding in rural communities, but very loosely. If anything it started to feel more politically tied than flu/outbreak/pandemic related.

The real issue is after watching that entire season, I don't feel like I know that much more about the flu itself. What's being done to create vaccines? Other than one makeshift crew in San Fransisco we know nothing. How exactly does it mutate? Wasn't discussed that I heard. What makes one emergent strain more likely to spread than another? What do the "H" and the "N" along with the corresponding number mean when a virus is labeled? I really don't know.

Maybe if a reality show following people who work around the flu or work in prevention is what you're expecting you won't be disappointed. But I really was expecting more of a scientific documentary. And, to be honest, I wouldn't have minded the following of their stories if I'd felt I learned more about the flu and how to prevent an outbreak.

Why the focus on the flu? Because in the modern age this is the most dangerous pathogen capable of rapidly spreading across the globe in a matter of weeks, possibly infecting and killing millions. And because it constantly mutates, there is no universal vaccine to stop it. These facts alone should concern anyone.

What's educational about this series is that I did not know the how much of it is zoonotic - e.g. capable of spreading from animal to animal including humans. The current 2019-nCoV that started at a wild meat market in Wuhan is only an example of what's possible with the flu. And that should scare everyone.

Too much focus on irrelevant things and personal lives. A bit of context is ok but so many boring details without purpose have ruined this series. Better editing would have done wonders to keep it interesting and engaging.