Pandemic Parallels Hit Close to Home

HBO Max series “The Last of Us” follows a grizzled man in an apocalyptic world. After a fungus outbreak has infected the world, fundamental freedoms are taken away while an overreaching bureaucracy searches for a cure. While “The Last of Us” is fiction, its depiction of real-world scenarios may be a lesson and a warning.

At the heart of “The Last of Us” is the loss of autonomy, created not by the outbreak but rather by the reaction to it. Measures aimed to contain illness, panic, and fear hinder one’s ability to freely live, move, and have contact with one another. The plot draws out elements that the world faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing viewers to think about how we as a civilization should respond to these events and what the implications are for the survival of humanity.