One might expect people to seek a break from pandemic-themed material. But if you open Netflix to see what’s trending, you’ll find Outbreak, the 1995 film in which Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Morgan Freeman play doctors trying to contain an ebola-like virus. You’ll also learn that lots of folks are watching Pandemic, a Netflix-produced documentary series that questions how ready the world is to handle a pandemic, coincidentally released in January 2020.
And once you’ve finished those, Netflix also offers Containment, a one-season show in which a virus spreads through Atlanta. Or you could head over to Hulu to watch Contagion, the 2011 film starring Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow.
But if sitting passively and watching powerlessly as a virus rages on-screen (and off-screen) isn’t your ideal night in, you can take matters into your own hands.
The board game Pandemic was initially available directly from Amazon for $30, but after selling out, the site now only sells it through third-party sellers for as little as $50. In the cooperative game, two to four players work together and take on the role of CDC employees tasked with curing four diseases before they ravage the world. At one point during the coronavirus pandemic, the game surged to the No. 2 trending spot on BoardGameGeek.com, the go-to site for board game fanatics. Ironically, the game’s publisher, Z-Man Games, had to cancel the game’s 2020 in-person tournament season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
And if saving humanity isn’t your style, there’s a video game where your job is to create and evolve a pathogen that does the opposite. In fact, Plague Inc. has been so popular during the coronavirus outbreak that game studio Ndemic Creations made a $250,000 donation split between the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to fight COVID-19. In light of the grim situation in the real world, the gaming studio is also working on a version of the game in which the player fights a deadly disease outbreak instead of starting one.
Who needs escapism from the coronavirus when you can instead dive deeper and deeper into the crisis? Apparently, plenty of people.
