Totally Under Control Parent Guide

When news footage in April showed coffins being deposited in mass graves in New York City, I sat in horrified disbelief in front of my TV set. How on earth, I wondered, did the richest and most powerful nation on earth come to this?

This is the question behind Totally Under Control. Produced at lightning speed, this is an up-to-the-minute documentary. With content spanning the period from December 2019 to October 1^st, 2020, the film was completed a mere 12 days before its release date.

The speed of its release is matched by the ingenuity of its production. The directors of Totally Under Control deserve credit for safely making a film during a pandemic. They took extraordinary measures to virus-proof the process, delivering cameras to some interview subjects so they could film themselves, or dividing rooms with plastic to film other experts. That it works so well is a tribute to their skill, planning, and dedication. There is no loss in quality and that is an achievement on its own.

They have also managed to offer an encyclopedic look at the American response to the novel coronavirus. To do so, the film provides a chronological overview of the virus’s domestic spread alongside interviews with leading experts in the field. It also contrasts the US government’s response with that of South Korea, which experienced its first case of covid-19 on the same day – January 20^th, 2020. Since that date, South Korea, with a population of 51 million, has had 24,476 cases of covid-19, and 428 deaths. The US, with a population six and a half times larger, has seen over 7 million cases and 213,000 deaths.

This documentary suggests three primary reasons for the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus across the US. First: the delay in widespread testing that made it impossible to catch, track, and trace early cases, as was done in countries like South Korea, New Zealand, and Taiwan, successfully limiting the virus’s spread. Second: failures of medical supply lines, most tragically visible in shortages of PPE (personal protective equipment) for medical personnel. Third: the politicization of public health precautions. Throughout these discussions, a few themes recur, specifically, a rigid bureaucracy, the gross incompetence of too many political appointees, and the toll taken by an ideology that put private profits ahead of public health.

Totally Under Control will certainly be a controversial film and will be lambasted by critics on the right for criticizing the Trump administration (and by critics on the far left for not being critical enough). Whether or not you like the movie will probably depend on your opinion of Donald Trump’s presidency. This is unfortunate. This documentary is not a political screed; it’s a post-mortem cataloging the failures that led to so many unnecessary deaths. Ideally, it will be watched by as many citizens as possible, if only to make sure that these failures don’t recur when the next pandemic emerges, as it surely will.