Totally Under Control—A Review
Totally Under Control—the new pandemic documentary written by Alex Gibney, and co-directed by Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger—covers the period between January and late spring of 2020. It traces the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and examines the dismal response of the American political elite. On January 21st, the headline in the New York Times read “China Confirms New Coronavirus Spreads From Humans to Humans.” The full horror of mass deaths and economic lockdown hadn’t yet dawned on the world, and even in Wuhan there wasn’t full comprehension of what was to come. The following day, President Donald Trump was asked if he was worried by the pandemic. “We have it totally under control,” he replied. This declaration has not aged well, and Totally Under Control details the bungling, the mismanagement, and the incoherence of the Trump administration’s response—a chronicle of a dance between COVID-19 and the White House that has claimed over 240,000 American lives as of this writing. As a point of contrast, the documentary also examines …
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