Zombie Research Society
We have recently discussed the problem that victims of the inevitable zombie virus are often described as simply asymptomatic. While they may have been infected and carry the deadly disease, their lack of aggression or other violent tendencies can cause a false sense of safety among fellow survivors. This might be a result of zombie fiction often confusing the terms immunity, pre-symptomatic, and incubation. So, let’s just look at the definition of incubation.
According to the Faculty of Public Health via HealthKnowledge, incubation is defined as the “interval between initial contact with an infectious agent and appearance of the first sign or symptom of [the] disease in question.” Of course, there are several other factors that include communicability, susceptibility, and latency period which may be incredibly important.
Incubation: Time interval between initial contact with an infectious agent and appearance of the first sign or symptom of disease in question.
Communicability: Period of communicability is the time during which an infectious agent may be transferred directly or indirectly from an infected person to another person, from an infected animal to humans, or from an infected person to animals. Also known as the ‘infectious period’.
Latent Period: The period between exposure and the onset of the period of communicability, which may be shorter or longer than incubation period.
Susceptibility: The state of being susceptible (easily affected / infected). A susceptible person does not possess sufficient resistance against a particular pathogen to prevent contracting that infection or disease when exposed to the pathogen.
For now, let’s disregard the idea of some airborne virus or disease and instead confine “initial contact” to any physical contact; clawing, scratching, biting, etc. Because we’re talking about the living dead here. And, according to the Zombie Research Society, a zombie is defined as a “relentlessly aggressive human, or reanimated human corpse” which means that the first sign or symptom of any undead infection would be expressed in such terms, explicit or otherwise.
The asymptomatic carriers may never exhibit violent tendencies, which leaves us with either the truly immune or those poor souls who are simply pre-symptomatic; slowly incubating the zombie virus inside their bodies. It’s a slow, prolonged death sentence that we will discuss soon. However, the results of ignoring any likely zombie infection are disastrous and deadly.
Ultimately, asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and incubation should be regarded as the same condition during the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Don’t gamble with your life! Your trusted fellow traveler who just happened to “survive” a recent zombie attack? He’ll probably say that everything is okay, he may even look okay and show no symptoms. But, unless you absolutely know better… please be be careful and diligent, because what you don’t know can eat you!