Coronavirus: Contagion’s official medical consultant has tested positive for Covid-19

Ian Lipkin helped shape the story of the Steven Soderbergh thriller, which has experienced a coronavirus-assisted resurgence

An epidemiologist who served as a medical consultant on the pandemic thriller Contagion has tested positive for coronavirus.

Dr Ian Lipkin told Fox Business this week (24 March) that he was suffering from symptoms of Covid-19, adding: “If it can hit me, it can hit anybody.”

Lipkin used the interview to stress the importance of social distancing in slowing the spread of the virus across the US.

“What New York, Chicago and Washington have done has been very, very helpful and I would like to see that implemented broadly across the United States,” he said.

Contagion, which was released almost a decade ago, has become an unexpected online smash in recent weeks. It is currently the fifth most rented film on iTunes, just under recent hits including Frozen II and Knives Out.

Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow starred in the Steven Soderbergh-directed film, which explored the early days of a global pandemic.

Lipkin said in 2011 that he had repeatedly turned down similar consulting roles on Hollywood films until Soderbergh came calling.

“[Contagion] was an effort to accurately represent the science and to make a movie that would entertain as well as educate,” he said in a Columbia University press release at the time.

Lipkin was also involved in the scriptwring process for the film, and said that he hoped it would alert audiences to “the urgent public health challenges that we face in the 21st century”.

The film’s producer recently said that the movie was “designed to be a cautionary tale”.