Actually, the details about the virus and the progression of the pandemic, the difficulty creating a vaccine, how the CDC goes about investigating outbreaks by sending people out to interview sick people, etc. was all quite realistic and scientifically accurate.

Some of the plot elements involving people's actions/reactions seemed a bit quirky, but they do symbolize the quirkiness in various segments in human society. Jude Law's character represents a large segment of society, much of which we saw during the H1N1 incident not long ago. The doctor who injects herself with the experimental vaccine sybolizes our frustration with the reality of how long it takes to develop vaccines doing it the correct way. Laurence Fishburne telling his fiance to get out of Dodge shows that even the experts on the front lines fighting the pandemic are human beings. And so on.