Comments on: Undead or Infected Zombies?

By: Fatman Inc.

Fatman Inc. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:44:17 +0000

just to point out a fact to everyone, the “infected’ the 28 “series” eventually ended up becoming your classic rotting carcass zombie near the end of the first film. anyone got any theories on that?

By: thomas

thomas — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:55:59 +0000

i believe it could be some type of mutated/genetically modified rabies or other virus, maybe with some type of regeneration gene to reanimate the host’s dead tissue to maintain the survival of the pathogen’s species and allow the host to be a type of walking pitri dish, what do you think?

By: Callum The Survivor

Callum The Survivor — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:03:40 +0000

Joe, having looked at what you said about the military tactics not failing, i have to disagree. By the time the military get to where the infected are, how many people would you say will be infected by that point? Lets say a couple of thousand. Despite the fact that the military in the area are vastly outnumbered, how many of the soldiers do you think would panick? Some would run, some would see them as people and not open fire and the vast majority would take twice as long reloading because they are panicking. They would panick because, despite the fact most of them have been in combat, they are new opponants, they are like a bloodthirsty mob.
I think that is reason enough why the military would fall.

Back to the point, infected zombies are very plausible and it is likely that something like the rage virus from the ’28′ films would happen. I looked on a website for 28 days later and it said that the rage virus is related to rabies.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:47:36 +0000

its a good thing the incubation period takes several months. also after a time the host dies so it would be a short lived romp.

By: PurpleEater

PurpleEater — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:06:37 +0000

Actually, rabies, in some parts of the world, is now so potent that it can be transferred through evaporated bodily fluids, pretty much making it an airborne pathogen.

By: mike

mike — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:02:08 +0000

as i stated in previous posts, rabies in its current form is impossible, otherwise it would have happened already. what we are considering is a mutated form of rabies, if you could speed up the incubation period, you would have a very nasty virus. yes there is a vaccine but most people in the world are not vaccinated .
if you had a faster acting virus, it could spread faster than people could be innoculated, not to mention they dont usually keep large quantities of the vaccine on hand. so if say some government or terrorist organization where to make a faster acting virus, then it would probably spread faster thn they could containit.

By: Zombie Hunter Sam

Zombie Hunter Sam — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:25:53 +0000

Joe — thanks for your insightful post. Rabies is a possible example, but not the definitive one. If it’s aggressive enough, people will infect each other at a fast rate, though not exponential, as previous infected will die off within a two to three weeks from starvation.

By: CFrigginJ

CFrigginJ — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:31:10 +0000

There is a new movie coming out called “The Crazies?” or “Crazy People”. I would like your opinion sam i you would. Its about a town that gets infected by a “virus” that takes over the brain and makes people insane, blood thirsty and well just plain crazy! This is what i believe will be a likely outcome of the virus that “i think” shall overcome our great nation.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:14:20 +0000

The only POSSIBLE way a zombie infection could occur is detailed in I Am Legend (movie at least… I haven’t gotten around to reading the book)
The disease would have to be an airborne virus.
Why? because otherwise the disease COULD NOT POSSIBLY infect enough people over large enough distance. Natural immunity would be the only hope of initial survival. Any physically transmitting disease would quickly be supressed by the military using CDC tactics. The common misconception about the military failing in a physical-transmission z-apoc is due to the belief that standard military tactics would be used. Mike (above) mentioned that people were close to creating a workable zombie virus using rabies as a base. Let me link ya to the wiki for rabies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies
Now then. Rabies is so extrordinarially far from the desired outcome that it could not be used in the production of a zombie plague. Let me list a few things:
1.The period between infection and the first flu-like symptoms is normally two to twelve weeks
The problem with this? Nearly this whole time the infected person can be tested for rabies using a simple procedure.
2.Once the rabies virus reaches the central nervous system and symptoms begin to show, the infection is effectively untreatable and usually fatal within days
The problem with this? Obvious, you want your zombies to live longer than a week, preferably several years.
3.the vast majority of human rabies cases (approximately 97%) come from dog bites
The problem with this? well, it’s transmission by bite only (ol’ skool zombie purists rejoice I guess)
4. an inability to speak or swallow are typical during the later stages of the disease
The problem with this? You want a zombie to be able to eat, or it starves / has no reason to attack humans (hunger would be the most obvious reason)
5. a vaccine was developed in 1885
You know how we innoculated people to stop smallpox? cowpox. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the similarities.

Fact is, rabies is not a suitable base for developing a zombie virus. Mike, as he pointed out, was watching CSI, blatent fiction interested in nothing more that profits. And zombies can REALLY get you profits.
Long post, eh?

By: josho123

josho123 — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:24:35 +0000

i [know] right