Just a few months ago, Americans were overcome with panic over the possibility of Ebola spreading across the county. After several government-sanctioned quarantines and many fear-mongering newscasts — not a single American has died from the virus. Now, Jennifer Lawrence and her Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 castmates have teamed up with the Ebola Survival Fund to dispel myths about the epidemic and reiterate the importance of getting treatment to those who need it most.
The PSA's release incidentally coincides with this week's confirmation that a health-care worker in Scotland has been diagnosed with Ebola. The woman had traveled from Sierra Leone, which, as the Hunger Games stars remind us, in one of the West African countries hit hardest by the disease.
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Jeffrey Wright, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Mahershala Ali, and Julianne Moore join Lawrence in the PSA. Among the spot's significant points is that Americans are much more likely to survive an outbreak, because of our access to health care. West Africans living in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Gambia are at much greater risk of mortality due to a lack of support and treatment.
"In Liberia, they had 50 doctors for 4.4 million people," Hutcherson points out, while Lawrence cautiously jokes that she'd be "fine" if she got Ebola. Not because she's scrappy like Katniss and can't be taken down — because she has a million doctors who can help her recover.
As far as Hunger Games transmissions go, this one is particularly frightening — all the more so because it's real.