Zombie Research Society
During our earlier discussion of asymptomatic zombies, the Zombie Research Society briefly touched on the incubation period of the undead virus. In fact, one of our own contributors mentioned this “zombie lag time” in 2012 regarding the pathology of living dead, specifically citing Dr. Natalie Mtumbo of the World Health Organization. Her expert opinion focused on the unlikely concept of an immediate infection as featured in 28 Days Later and other films.
While a single drop of infected blood instantly turning its victim into a delirious, bloodthirsty monster makes for exciting cinema – author Jonathan Maberry dismisses the idea outright in his book Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead when hospital administrator G. Harris Grantham was adamant that such a concept simply doesn’t follow pathogenic patterns.
Not going to happen. I could buy a reduced metabolic rate and some organ shutdown, which means I could almost buy the Night of the Living Dead zombies with some medical exceptions. At a stretch I could make a case for it; but the other plague doesn’t follow pathogenic spread patterns. It isn’t logical enough even to compete with the plague scenarios in the George Romero zombie movies.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, common viruses with the longest incubation period range from two days for the Adenovirus (with typical cold or flu-like symptoms) up to four weeks for walking pneumonia. However, in some rare cases rabies has been known to incubate for over a year. And the prion disease known as Kuru has an average incubation period of just over ten years due to the slow progression of the pathogen through the human nervous system.
A true zombie would be “relentlessly aggressive” which implies that the disease or infection is spread by some violent attack; clawing, scratching, biting, etc. Given the unknown variables, the inevitable zombie virus could incubate in its host for days or years. But such a ridiculous disparity is almost impossible for most experts, scientists, and zombie researchers to accept.
With this in mind, ZRS contributor Ashley Knox introduced readers to several mathematical models via the National Library of Medicine that took into consideration a variety of disease systems, epidemiology and transmission. The ultimate conclusion was that humans have ten days to stop the inevitable zombie outbreak by implementing aggressive counter-measures.
The simple truth is that no one really knows the incubation period of the zombie virus or how it will affect its host. And it is here that our official definition of a zombie seems to cause more confusion than necessary; is a zombie simply a “relentlessly aggressive human” or is it really a “reanimated human corpse” – because death itself is not trivial. Regardless, both are clearly driven by a deadly biological infection and such biological infections must follow certain rules.
Despite the uncertainty, or perhaps because of it, being infected by the zombie virus is akin to a final judgement without any clear day or time; a prolonged death sentence, an unknowable future, the Sword of Damocles, always hanging over your final days. Review the links above, study them, review them, and decide for yourself. Because what you don’t know can eat you!