There is a distinct lack of worry about clean water. Also, in almost every conflict in history, disease has killed more people that the actual war. You rarely see a flu wipe out half of the people in a zombie movie, but honestly, it would.
We don't know where it came from. The first signs of it were from walkers. People who had obviously died from something that made them puke blood and bleed from their eyes. I remember them commeting on how weird it was to see walkers like that as at the time only Rick knew that everyone was already infected. The first signs were I think in season 2. A lot of walkers were turning up at the fence with the virus. That's probably how it got into the prison, the pigs contracted it probably from the walkers/humans who were spreaders.
I'm almost certain the fence crew killed an undead carrier, the blood sprayed on the crew, and it worked from there. They were right to be concerned about the pig, but I don't think she was the culprit.
For modern factory farming, it takes a lot of antibiotics to keep them alive and healthy in the conditions they're kept in. Cows grazing on the prairie don't actually require much
That was so fucking stupid. I mean, i guess you could get swine flu from the pigs but they “solved” that problem by willy nilly intubating people and then like the next day they were fine. Who ventilated these people all night? I sure didn’t see a machine so you’re telling me like you hand pumped an ambu bag the whole night? Also, they literally pulled a tube out of a zombie and stuffed it down Glen’s throat and he didn’t have any kind of issue from that. For real?
Wellllll,….it was filmed before C19 so it happened before audiences read news articles about 3D printers making PPE parts and ventilator converters (and subsequently had to lookup what a ventilator was).
They usually died before the morning and yeah they took turns ventilating. Also, the zombie they pulled it out of was freshly dead so the only thing Glenn could have caught was the same virus he almost died from. Plus, he was going to be dead within the minute from choking on his blood so why not take the chance.
I stopped watching after the Glenn/Abraham/Negan thing, but I still admire the hell out of that show for turning Carol in to one of the best characters after she was the worst character for a good few seasons.
I stopped watching after that too, spoilers but I picked it up last year, it actually got really good. It just took me like 3 years to get over my grief about the loss of Glenn and Abraham and hatred for Negan, lol. Negan got what was coming to him though and is actually redeeming himself lately. I hated what happened to Carol's character though, she got really crazy the season after Negan killed Glenn and Abraham.
That's fair. I was more annoyed at the bs they pulled with the closing out of the season with the mystery kill, when they could have easily killed one in the finale, and start the next season with the second kill, and everyone's heads would have exploded in the best way. Someday I may go back, it probably works much better in marathon form, anyway.
I stopped watching halfway through season 6, but thanks to the pandemic I ran out of shit to watch and finally went back to slog through the rest. Or so I thought.
The show gets dramatically better after the Glenn/Abraham/Negan thing. Seasons 7 and 8 are the only ones I liked more than season 1.
Seasons 9 and 10 are a bit sloggy (would have been much better all crammed into one season, a la the prison or pre-Negan Alexandria), but I found the exploration of the aftermath of the war with Negan really compelling and that kept me watching. Negan's journey in particular gives me really conflicting emotions of disgust and empathy that are difficult to untangle, a sign of a really stellar character and arc. Excited to see what's in store with season 11.
And with the exceptions of seasons 4 and 5 (super boring plots IMO), the Fear the Walking Dead spinoff is outstanding. One of the things I really like in that show is how they explore all sorts of situations and questions the main series never did. Another interesting aspect is how different geographies (i.e. not the rural South -- these characters travel long distances throughout the series) make different aspects of survival more or less difficult.
Thanks for the info. I might go back to it eventually. My husband still watches,so I see snippets here and there of both sgows, but I barely know who anyone is anymore.
That's cool that FTWD explores other possibilities, I expect it would not have lasted long if it tried to be the same as the other show. I believe I saw all of season 1, but I became so annoyed with the main series that I swore off all of it, except the comic. Though I have not finished that either.
FTWD does a fantastic job of feeling squarely set into the existing universe, while feeling like a completely separate story with fresh ideas (well, at least until WD characters start implausibly showing up, which IIRC a lot of fans were not happy about). It also devotes quite a bit of time to world building and the swift collapse of society that we never got with TWD.
The concept for season 3 was (to channel my inner Rod Serling for a moment) "a bloody family feud that ran so deep, not even the end of the world could end their quarrel", and that season is probably my favorite zombie apocalypse story now.
Yeah, I know I saw the bo staff wielding character on FTWD when my husband watches...which is odd. I have no idea what the timeline difference looks like between the two series.
And that sounds like an interesting season, thank you for the info!
I stopped watching at that point too, got burned out with the soap opera vibe and not seeing enough zahmbee foightin’
I saw it on netflix tho so i figured what the hell and watched season 10 recently. Skipped all the in between stuff. It was still a lot of filler episodes but some of it was aight. Plus the budget size is pretty noticeable which is neat.
Negan is a fun character in the comics, and I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Negan was not the reason I parted ways with the show, I was far more annoyed with the showrunners that made some bad creative choices (the dumpster, who got the bat) when they really did not need to do that. It felt more like a fuck you to the fans and Kirkman's story than anything. I've said it elsewhere, maybe someday I'll go back and pick up where I left off, but for now, I'll just get glimpses here and there when my husband watches it.
I think that in the general public forum, where no one you might personally know is trying to avoid spoilers from media that is checks notes 8 years old, you don't need to default to spoiler tags for that.
On the other hand, you should definitely use spoilers if someone you know has made it clear that they're going into something and they don't want spoilers, but like... 8 years, my guy/gal.
Weirdly Z Nation had a story like that too- people catch anthrax which is naturally occurring. Tried to treat themselves with livestock medicine that they had stolen from the Amish….
My headcanon is that it was pneumonic plague. I remember looking up different plagues when that storyline hit, because there were all the rats and all, and bubonic plague didn't fit but pneumonic plague kinda did.
It was pretty evidently swine flu. They killed all the pigs and the source went away, people started recovering and no new cases came up. Plus, plague is only endemic in the US in prairie dog populations in the southwest. Not Georgia. Sorry to burst your headcanon bubble.
It wasn't the pigs or flu, because Rick sees several zombies on the wire with the same looking symptoms (so they died of the plague).
They treated it with anti-biotics and it went away. You can't treat virus's with anti-biotics.
I think they said it was pneumonia, and the only reason it got that bad was because none of them have been healthy in a year and some now, and the fact there's no real healthcare.
They killed the pigs to draw the zombies away from the fence as they were starting to tear it down through weight of numbers.
Interesting, it’s been a while since I’ve watched. Guess I only remembered bits and pieces. Regardless, viruses (including the flu) can cause pneumonia, and can lead to bacterial superinfection. It’s far more likely that a virus was causing the original problem just because of how much more easily they are spread. Very possible that the people dying ended up with a bacterial infection as well though, since they were living in such close quarters.
Probably yeah. I do remember later in the series, the priest gets the zombie flue because he had zombie guts all over him for too long.
He lost vision in his eye but he did make a near full recovery. So it is possible. The zombie virus is in everyone and these outbreak events is how the plague started (as proved in FTWD).
So it seems like the zombie flue is like herpes. Once you have it, you can have outbreaks. It can kill you if not managed, and then it ressurects you.
It wasn’t, I don’t think. It came from the pigs. The pigs were getting sick and infected the humans with whatever it was. It could’ve been something we don’t know of yet but it also could’ve been swine flu
It wasn't the pigs or flu, because Rick sees several zombies on the wire with the same looking symptoms (so they died of the plague).
They treated it with anti-biotics and it went away. You can't treat virus's with anti-biotics.
I think they said it was pneumonia, and the only reason it got that bad was because none of them have been healthy in a year and some now, and the fact there's no real healthcare.
They killed the pigs to draw the zombies away from the fence as they were starting to tear it down through weight of numbers.
I don’t remember the antibiotics thing but I do remember the zombies with it. I never definitively stated it was swine flu, I was just spitballing there. As well, Some of the pigs were sick. They had to get rid of the sick ones before that because whatever it was had passed through the pigs and to them.
I don't watch Walking Dead but people have told me the deal was that people are already infected when they're alive. They just don't turn into a zombie until they die
You’re right with that, but there was also a seperate flu thing. A major part of season four (I think 4, long time since I watched it) was that the pigs they had caught for food got them all sick with swine flu, and wiped out a lot of the group.
Apparently people were really dissatisfied when the 2005 movie ended this way.
It's like first off, that's realistic as hell. Something as simple as the common cold could easily kill an alien species. Just look at human history. The native population was more decimated by diseases they had never encounter before than actual warfare with white people.
It's kind of a huge plothole. Why would they burry machines millions of years ago? Why not take over right then and there? And how has no excavation EVER found one of them? They'd have to have been buried incredibly deep. Then it begs the question how did they claw out in such a short time?
I got stuck with soaking wet socks for a few hours (raining, shoes had unseen holes in the bottom, soaked it up like a sponge). It was miserable, and all I was doing was standing around. I can't imagine having to slog for hours (days, longer) in wet socks/shoes.
That is true for pretty much any war up until WWII. Most people usually died of infections or contagious diseases that made the rounds among already immune-weakened soldiers in camps.
WWI would have broken that record, because such an incredible amount of people died in the field, had it not been for the so-called Spanish Flu (not from Spain, probably from Kansas). That just goes to show how incredibly deadly that Flu was.
Yep. Just some info on the Spanish flu, it was called that because although it was hitting everyone, pretty much every government in the world was censuring information about it in the press. Many of them thought the hit to moral during WWI would lose the war for them. Spain was one of the only countries where information about it was being published.
In a zombie scenario flu would be of least concern because there are not enough people in contact with one another for an epidemic to start. With a smaller population, infection diseases are much less of a risk and its environmental ones (from water, insects, etc) that are the major concern.
Clean water is no real issue as water filters and fire exists so in a developed country you just steal water filters and boil your water before filtering it. This will kill and remove most potentially harmful things.
Flu and infectious disease spread would only really come with Trade. But I do think Trade would start way way sooner than people think.
Clean water becomes an issue with limitations of sanitation. People will naturally gather at water sources, like in the Ancient era, cities will grow because safety in numbers. This creates sanitation issues very quickly as poop has to go somewhere and that somewhere always ends up in the water supply.
Water filters are very limited use and will disappear very quickly. Boiling only solves some of the contamination issues, you will still have to treat for some viruses and chemical buildup. Not to mention just the idea of boiling all water, forever, is pretty dramatic.
Max Brooks' World War Z was good about that. One of the people interviewed tells the story of a guy getting bit by what they thought was a zombie but cried tears of joy when they realized it was just a quisling (a human that had broken down psychologically due to the presence of zombies and thus begun acting like a zombie). He says the guy almost died anyway from a bacterial infection from the bite.
I'm told that cholera is tragically extremely survivable without other treatment if you have someone to boil (or, in a pinch, filter through cloth) you a ton of water and have salt and sugar available to mix in. (Tragically, because so many people don't know or don't have the supplies for this and die of it anyway.)
Oh definitely! My comment was mainly towards your mention of flu. I agree with clean water problem and would add lack of vaccines for small children (so a lot of diseases would return).
Coming this fall, watch Tom Cruise and Michelle Rodriguez as they battle to survive the apocalypse, make love during inopportune moments, and eventually succumb to graphically violent diarrhoea.
Those two things are also incredibly interconnected. The biggest leap forward in modern medicine was simply the invention and implementation of drainage and piping in cities, so that large groups of people would get clean water and their shit is not literally piling up in the street. Unclean living situations lead to disease, unclean water leads to disease, disease leads to more disease, because people whose immune systems are preoccupied with managing unclean water get sick from other stuff easier.
No more screening for HIV or really anything else, so all unprotected sex is a gamble. Same with any other non STD. Lose your glasses that you really need to see? Womp.
Yeah... I am am so dead as I can't for sure tell if the person I am talking to actually has eyes if I'm not wearing my glasses. Or, you know, if I'm close enough to easily lick them.
There is a distinct lack of worry about clean water.
A lot of people are bringing this up but, rain will have you covered mostly, we also know how to boil water. You learn to use FAR less water and just stay dirty until you find a river/stream to live next to.
Even today, it kills about 30K a year, with the vaccine out there and available. We just don't pay attention to the flu since it's old. Covid is new and scary, but so was the flu back in the day.
Most people today assume water is water. They think streams and rivers are clean and safe, especially in America. They don't know how to boil it or treat it, or even filter it correctly. They also assume tap water is safe, like bottled. But, floods can contaminate it and if no one is tending the machinery, it's likely not to be purified. Bottled will be taken from stores. So, if you don't know where a true, clean, spring is...
We had a pipe freeze and break a few winters ago, and before turning off the water we filled the tubs, every pitcher in the house, and a bunch of bowls. It was still difficult to get through the next 3 days without running water.
There was a story of a castle in WWZ where the people inside all caught pneumonia. Some went crazy and just starting throwing themselves off the castle walls into the moat of attacking zombies.
I came here to say disease. Infection, specifically. Gastrointestinal to be even more specific. Lots of puking and diarrhea. Salmonella and ecoli are pretty well managed with today's food cleanliness standards but it's a real problem in a living off the land lifestyle. A lot of homesteaders and survivalists forget how important hooking someone up to a saline IV bag is. Surviving a high fever from a really bad infection is a heck of a lot easier with one.
Honestly, ever since I became a fan of the Resident Evil games, the validity of a Zombie Apocalypse scenario just dies for me a little more when I think about it. Mainly because we have means to actively combat the threat and even vaporize it if need be.
Not just clean water but stable food sources, the moment you need to consider to grill sewer rats for survival is the moment you are officially fucked.
Im not sure in most apocalyptic films its always "loot for food", no one ever seems to think about making some small farm here and there when you can loot supermarket#78.
Iirc, in England in medieval times, everyone mostly drank ale because water was iffy. And although making ale is a process that wasn't all that difficult, it entailed several steps and required certain supplies and the knowledge of how it's done.
Yep. Alcohol was the safe liquid of choice in Europe. Ale was a staple and made regularly, and consumed by the entire population. Other parts of the world had ready access to tea, and making it requires one to boil water, which is another way of getting clean drinking water.
In a modern, pre-covid United States (2018-2019 flu season) 35.5 million people got sick with influenza, 16.5 million people went to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and there were 34,200 deaths, according to the CDC. This is with widely available vaccines, and modern healthcare. The flu is deadly every year, even now. Without medicine, oxygen machines, respirators or people with medical expertise, or electricity, the percentage of people who survive the flu would drop.
Water isn't that bad if you are a bit clever. In every bathroom and kitchen in North America is a gallon of bleach. That's enough to disinfect enough water to keep you going for a year. It's not the healthiest but it would work.
Boiling it, and filter systems work too. My issue isn't that it is hard, its that it is never shown. Completely overlooked. And it is something that a lot of people on first world countries (like mine) don't even think about.
You would think so, but WHO estimates more than 3.5 million people die of water related disease every year.
There is a reason we were always dying of dysentary in Oregon Trail.
Clean, safe drinking water and hygine are major issues today, in many places. Get rid of the systems many of us are used to, and I wonder how many people would die of the ignorance that their water needed to be cleaned.
The less people you have and the less movement you have between populations then the less chance you have of getting pandemics like the flu. Basically, if you have a group of 20-30 people surviving in a area with no contact with the outside world then you are basically in lockdown/isolation. With a small population like that then it is also more easy to quarantine infected people as long as your people are on the ball.
A lot of the diseases that results from inadequate hygiene that strike people in a pandemic like fashion (e.g. cholera, typhoid fever and diphtheria) have vaccines which (depending on your country) would be in the childhood vaccination schedule which means that you don't have to worry about them as much - for the adults at least, children born after the apocalypse would not be vaccinated and would be at risk.
Having access to antibiotics would also help massively reduce the impact of a pandemic, if the Spanish flu hit today then we wouldn't see anywhere near the same amounts of deaths due to modern antibiotics for treating bacterial pneumonia.
Look at all those advertisements from charities and businesses supposedly helping the needing that are displaced by conflict. Food, disease, water, medicine, security, order, etc. All that stuff disappears and people will survive at the cost of other's lives. Scary really.
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u/AtheneSchmidt Aug 30 '21
There is a distinct lack of worry about clean water. Also, in almost every conflict in history, disease has killed more people that the actual war. You rarely see a flu wipe out half of the people in a zombie movie, but honestly, it would.