# How many zombies, really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167 "2012-09-19T13:59:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/21 "2012-09-19T21:54:41Z")
Yeah, that’s why I made the little “joke” in post 9. But the original question likely does have a real-world answer/guesstimate, which is why I put it in GQ. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/22 "2012-09-19T22:32:57Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Does anyone know a gun owner who has only 2 bullets? Deputy Barney Fife only ever had one bullet at a time. Andy was a smart cookie. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/23 "2012-09-19T22:47:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > . And let’s not forget that nearly half the dead today are cremated in the U.S. and that’s trending toward 100% in Japan. Really? So Japan would be reasonably safe as a refuge? or would there be a problem because of the lack of commonly owned firearms? [I vaguely remember that pretty much owning a firearm is illegal in Japan, though I may be wrong. I just vaguely remember from a discussion here a few years ago about firearm ownership around the world.] ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2012, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/24 "2012-09-19T22:53:14Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Really? So Japan would be reasonably safe as a refuge? or would there be a problem because of the lack of commonly owned firearms? [I vaguely remember that pretty much owning a firearm is illegal in Japan, though I may be wrong. I just vaguely remember from a discussion here a few years ago about firearm ownership around the world.] Japan would be a very bad place to be in a zombie apocalypse IMHO. High population density. And yeah, most guns are illegal in Japan except for very limited and highly regulated instances to the general public (sports clubs and shooting clubs and the like). I suppose if you survived long enough there, though, you at least wouldn’t have to worry about zombies coming in from outside of the home islands, as I doubt zombies would survive the walk across the bottom of the ocean intact (I seem to recall from World War Z that zombies can walk along the bottom of bodies of water, but that they decay faster there…or something. Plus, they get lost and stuff, and there aren’t a lot of brains to feed on down there). ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/25 "2012-09-20T00:26:50Z")
> [@Blakeyrat](#): > > What about a movie like 28 Days Later, where “zombies” are just victims of a rabies-like virus? I thought that was much more plausible than the “rising from the grave” version. 28 Days Later has its own problems in logical plausibility. Again, great movie, but the ‘zombies’ aren’t actually undead, they are infected by ‘rage’, a virus that turns people (and monkeys) into homicidal maniacs bent upon doing as much killing as possible before eventually starving to death. It spreads so rapidly because the smallest drop of infected blood makes a person a zombieoid in moments. The problem? For some reason the infected stop trying to kill the person they just infected, and don’t try to kill each other. For my money [The Crazies](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455407/) was one of the best homicidal infection movies. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/26 "2012-09-20T01:09:07Z")
The thing that gets me about the spread of the mob is that people woefully underestimate how fast a single person can kill a zombie. Let’s say they hole up somewhere where the walkers are pounding down the only door. If the person inside has a machete, they can easily just keep hacking at whatever sticks through the door. If they can get a head shot every, say, 12 seconds, then that’s 2400 zombies in a single 8-hour day! Two people in shifts can kill their entire town in an afternoon. They don’t even need a gun. Can you imagine how easy it’d be to snipe all these bastards from a roof? ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/27 "2012-09-20T01:29:39Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > It’s the “sealed in coffins” bit that doesn’t work. Zombies are shown to be mindless, shuffling automatons - how do they get out of a sealed coffin? I forget if Mythbusters studied this-they did examine whether people could get out of wet sand when buried up to their necks in it (they couldn’t). ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/28 "2012-09-20T03:40:55Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > …This is one thing that the original zombie classic movie _Night of the Living Dead_ got right, it was literally the _night_ of the living dead. The movie ends with the zombies being mopped up the next morning. Except as the sequels demonstarted everything _didn’t_ stay under control for very long. The local area may have gotten under control in the short term, but it didn’t last & society ended up collapsing. The death rate would skyrocket in a Romero-style zombie event. Romero was really vauge on what caused the dead to rise, but whatever was doing it it wasn’t something that could be contained. Basically the laws of nature changed overnight. It’s not enough to quarentine your group or just put down the existing zombies or wait for them to rot away. Plus it appeared that whatever was causing the dead to reanimate also drastically slowed their rate of decomposition. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/29 "2012-09-20T15:19:26Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > … Deaths where the person was not mobile in the first place (eg, a person dying because of severe spinal cord injuries, or a spina bifida patient, or even dead infants?) > . Assuming the cause of the zombie (technically “ghoul” but why argue the point) outbreak is either a virus/germ aliens magic run amok such injuries may not matter. Like a sort of “exo-skeleton” the virus creates and controls the movement so as long as it can communicate it can move the host. Hence your usual assortment of zombies who are little more than a rib cage and head. The real question becomes: is tissue needed? Not at all as we learned in “Evil Dead/Army of Darkness” where the best zombies are nothing but skeletons. > [@JohnT](#): > > Any idea how a zombie gets out of a coffin? Is that even addressed in the, er, literature? Claw their way out or wiggle basically worm-like. Whatever reanimated them can clearly survive underground and with no/limited oxygen and some states/regions do not require sealed concrete vaults. And even steel caskets/coffins are not that indestructible ------ I’ve been at a couple exhumations where the lid collapsed/seams burst which in the event of WWZ would give the corpse at least a head start to the surface. > [@Dissonance](#): > > Oof, this brings up the other huge flaw in zombie logic. Zombies are mindlessly motivated to eat the flesh of the living. Why do they decide to only take a nibble, or at least leave enough of a victim uneaten for them to turn into a new zombie? Even worse is that zombies are often specifically motivated to eat braaaiiinnnsss, but the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot them in the brain. How are zombies creating more of their kind if they are eating the one thing that will kill a zombie? > > For the record I truly enjoy zombie movies for what they are, but they have gaping holes in their logic. Ever meet a hunter who never “missed” or never wounded an animal? Maybe one who took a bite of liver or heart from a fresh kill even though what they really wanted was the steaks? In the original Dawn of the Dead, when presented with an abundant food source (motorcycle gang) the zombies went to the limbs and intestines first and saved the heads and brains for dessert. And that isn’t even considering your remake “Dawn” style zombies that are pretty fast and retain some use of tools! > [@aruvqan](#): > > Really? So Japan would be reasonably safe as a refuge? or would there be a problem because of the lack of commonly owned firearms? [I vaguely remember that pretty much owning a firearm is illegal in Japan, though I may be wrong. I just vaguely remember from a discussion here a few years ago about firearm ownership around the world.] For Japanese zombies, see “Stacey” ------- not only do they have zombies but they are all schoolgirls. China gets more complicated. There, a zombie is created by burying someone without the proper respect and ceremony. Said zombie (who hops rather than shuffles) becomes a vampire after it feeds. I forget all the nuances but you can refer back to Tsui Harls “Vampire Hunters” As for me, I’ll be doing my research here > **[Pittsburgh Zombie Fest 2012](https://www.facebook.com/events/483789431646460/)** > > Event by Mark Menold on Saturday, October 13 2012 with 1.8K people interested.716 posts in the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/30 "2012-09-20T15:31:15Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > It spreads so rapidly because the smallest drop of infected blood makes a person a zombieoid in moments. The problem? For some reason the infected stop trying to kill the person they just infected, and don’t try to kill each other. They don’t try to kill each other because the Rage virus makes them “blood brothers” in a way. Remember at the end, when Cillian Murphy released the captive zombie? The first thing he did was throw up blood on the guard, turning him. Rage wants to replicate. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/31 "2012-09-20T16:31:14Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > It’s not the rising dead initially that you worry about. Most people don’t initially think to put two in the head of someone they see shuffling around. They go up to them and make sure they are okay. So New York City would be a terrible place to start a zombie apocalypse? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/32 "2012-09-20T16:43:40Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > So New York City would be a terrible place to start a zombie apocalypse? Start? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/33 "2012-09-20T18:14:07Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Start? Yes, I don’t expect a whole lot of New Yorkers to “go up to them and make sure they are okay.” ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/34 "2012-09-20T19:59:53Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > The thing that gets me about the spread of the mob is that people woefully underestimate how fast a single person can kill a zombie. Let’s say they hole up somewhere where the walkers are pounding down the only door. If the person inside has a machete, they can easily just keep hacking at whatever sticks through the door. If they can get a head shot every, say, 12 seconds, then that’s 2400 zombies in a single 8-hour day! Two people in shifts can kill their entire town in an afternoon. They don’t even need a gun. Can you imagine how easy it’d be to snipe all these bastards from a roof? The key is maintaining that strict perimeter control and very limited access. As long as you’ve got a good perch with good defenses, you can take the time to snipe the zombies. But what happens when the hoard comes at you in numbers, and someone finds that air duct you didn’t cover, or the weak point in the chain link fence behind the shrubbery, or whatever. One minute you’re hacking away at everything in front of you, the next you’re chomped in the butt by the one you didn’t see coming. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/35 "2012-09-20T21:10:21Z")
I don’t know if this has come up in any of the other threads on zombies, but this page has a zombie simulator – with dots used to represent a number of states. You generally have to watch it for a very long time before one side or another (usually the zombies) completely wins. > **[InsertDisc.com is for sale | HugeDomains](https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=insertdisc.com)** > > Get your very own domain easily. Fast and professional customer service. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/36 "2012-09-20T23:54:15Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They don’t try to kill each other because the Rage virus makes them “blood brothers” in a way. Remember at the end, when Cillian Murphy released the captive zombie? The first thing he did was throw up blood on the guard, turning him. > > Rage wants to replicate. If you want to be biological, I’d guess that they put out some pheromone that tells the other zombies that they are one of them. It’s not that uncommon for a species to not try to kill its own kind. That would also be an interesting plot point–getting the pheromone to produce a zombie repellant for the humans. Or, at least, have one survivor who uses the corpses as repellant, surrounding his fort with them or something. (Without touching them, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/37 "2012-09-20T23:59:13Z")
I don’t see any reason to assume that zombies need muscles, or need them to be attached to bones. Sure, biology as we know it requires those things, but it also requires that the muscles must be alive, and we’re already dispensing with that requirement. Why not assume that the necromantic energies or whatever can just move bones directly? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/38 "2012-09-21T00:03:05Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That would also be an interesting plot point–getting the pheromone to produce a zombie repellant for the humans. Or, at least, have one survivor who uses the corpses as repellant, surrounding his fort with them or something. (Without touching them, of course.) Something very similar happened in the first season of The Walking Dead. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/39 "2012-09-21T22:37:20Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That would also be an interesting plot point–getting the pheromone to produce a zombie repellant for the humans. Or, at least, have one survivor who uses the corpses as repellant, surrounding his fort with them or something. (Without touching them, of course.) The Walking Dead uses that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167/40 "2012-09-22T20:05:47Z")
I don’t think that all of the stuff in the movies is correct, but my take is… The Z virus starts off as Flu type virus (Like the Spanish Flu, post ww1). Many people die from this alone, and family members, and health professionals in the beginning are too infected before precautions are brought in. When the dead are reanimated, the infection is transmitted via body fluids ie. into the blood by bite. I personally believe that the animated dead DO need to eat for fuel, but as said up thread, they "fuel up ", and then leave the rest of the victim relatively ambulatory as a vector for further spread of the virus. The human corpses are only a vehicle for the virus. In effect the virus is like a person driving a car. So the reanimated deads first victims would be primarily concerned passersby, but mostly emergency services called out to deal with drunks, druggies, mentally ill etc. And people working at funeral homes. As to shooting, always supposing that we know to shoot the head in the first place. Many, many people aren’t as good shots as they are in their own fond imaginations, even including profesional weapon carriers. Then add in fear, the weirdness of the situation, the fact that the target is moving (Albeit slowly), and a lingering suspicion that these are only sick people, not walking corpses. You will get a lot of misses and a lot of wasted ammo. Zs are supposed to be very strong, plus feel no pain (and obviously no fear ) There seems to be a current trend that Zs are basically pussies in hand to hand, and that a relatively light blow anywhere on the head will kill them. That and that humans can get right up close, even touching them and not get infected. I totally disagree with this. I think that if you even get touched by a Z then theres a quite good chance that you’ll get infected. Get some blood splatter or slime on you and you’re infected me old mucker ! So people would be loth to fight Zs hand to hand, if at all possible, and if compelled to do so would be hampered in their fighting by not trying to get tactile during the fighting. Which would lower the chance of touching but increase the Zs chance of winning the fight. Humans would have to leave the safety of their refuges due to hunger. The conveniently stocked empty supermarkets in the films would not exist. Whenever theirs a panic, the shelves empty. Theres usually only a limited resupply on hand for shops even when there isn’t a Z appocalypse. So once the hoarders have got in, then the supply network is seriously disruppted you’ll have empty shops. Hungry people, will have to make themselves vulnerable or starve to death. And weakened by hunger, they’d be less able to fight run, or even be good shots. All of these things would IMO make the Z threat a pretty strong one. I don’t agree with the “All dead bodies regardless of exposure” would become Zs, because if that was the case all the Z virus would have to do would allow itself to be spread by the wind and ground water. No need to go around biting people, just stay where you are and wait. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-zombies-really/635167.md?page=1)