Apparently we would all be dead in less than a year. A group of physics students at the University of Leicester (UK) calculated that in just 100 days, humans would be outnumbered by a million if the contagious “zombie virus” appeared. The work was published in the Journal of Physics Special Topics.
After only three months, the scenario would be quite terrifying for humanity , as only several hundred of us would still be alive. Even if the last people on Earth somehow held out for another nine months, it is unlikely that they would be able to repopulate the planet without first being infected or eaten.
Given the grim prognosis, it may be a relief to learn that the research was conducted as part of an annual exercise testing students’ ability to apply scientific models to hypothetical scenarios, that is, scientists do not really expect the world as we know it finished.
However, considering that humans are quite adept at adapting and overcoming adversity, the students redid their calculations based on the fact that survivors would improve their abilities by escaping and killing zombies, and that they could have offspring without any problems. They might learn, for example, that the best place to hide is in the mountains and not in shopping malls.
Considering humanity’s new survival abilities, it would ultimately take humans around 1,000 days, or 2.7 years, to eliminate all the zombies. In another 25 years, the human population should begin to recover from the attack.
In both studies, students had to decide on a number of variables, such as infection parameters. They assumed that a zombie could find a person every day, and it would have a 90% chance of infecting them with the zombie virus.
They then used an epidemiological technique called the SIR model to create a map of how the disease would spread. Using the model, they divided the human population into three categories: the susceptible (S), zombie (Z), and dead (D) population.
The lifespan of a zombie goes from S to Z to D. Natural births and deaths during that time would be quite insignificant compared to the destruction caused by the zombie virus.
The model then looked at how often infected humans (zombies) would come into contact with uninfected humans, and how likely they were to transmit the disease, to see how many humans could survive.
How to survive a zombie outbreak in the real world
According to another report carried out by scientists at Cornell University (USA), one of the main keys to survival in the face of a zombie apocalypse is to stay in a sparsely populated mountainous area , specifically in the north of the Rocky Mountains in as far as the United States is concerned. “Given the dynamics of the disease, once zombies invade sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down … there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate,” says Alex Alemi, co-author. from work.
Where would you go in the event of a true zombie apocalypse? 🙂
Referencia: You Can Run, You Can Hide: The Epidemiology and Statistical Mechanics of Zombies. Universidad de Cornell / A zombie epidemic. University of Leicester Press Office . Journal of Physics Special Topics
