[Foghorn Leghorn]

I hear a lot of people talking about 'millions of zombies' in cities and in other large areas. I have a problem with this. I can see hundreds of zombies due to the nature of how the virus is spread. One or two zombies can surprise a person and be pushed away while still getting a bite in or two. The now bitten person becomes a zombie now making three zombies, right? But what happens when you get 5 or more attacking one person. They take the person down and devour most if not all of the body. Now put that scenario on a larger scale. Zombie numbers would eventually stop, or at least slow drastically down,  due to the zombies consuming the majority of their victim's bodies. Throw in the slowness of their movements (if they are runners, WE ARE FRACKED), the amount of weaponry in some parts of this World, humanities violent nature,  and there is an decent chance that such an outbreak will be contained. It'll be messy, ugly, and unkind to many people but it would be contained. Any opinions about this?

[Stan]

Assuming a pandemic outbreak which people didn't fully recognize, the numbers are realistic or perhaps even lowball for what we are seeing on the show. quarantines would be in place for the infected LONG before anyone thought of killing them, particularly the ones without severe deformity. Even so, let's look at numbers here. The US census bureau put the 2010 US population at about 308,745,538. If only one person became infected for every ten eaten (numbers would be less eaten in the beginning, more towards the end, but we'll go with this as a starting point) then that would leave about 30 million Walkers throughout the United States, scattered among all states and provinces. Cities would have the largest numbers in the beginning, followed by evacuation centers and last stand areas where congregations occurred due to Walker stimulus attraction. Time would disperse the Walkers nationwide, but odds are they'd remain in clumps around these areas, more or less.

Georgia had a population of 9,687,653 at the time of the census. Going with a 1:10 ratio that means an estimated 968,765 Walkers there alone. The Walkers seen in Atlanta so far have numbered less than a thousand...even if we extrapolate all areas of the city and build on it there's room for more (Atlanta's 2010 census stated a population of 420,003...meaning that 41 THOUSAND Walkers could be in and around that area at my guesstimate ratio). Let's say military and other sanitizing attempts were to wipe out 75% of Walkers before the rout, that still would leave 10 times the Walkers seen on the show in just Atlanta.

I believe the show is Walker conservative for budgetary reasons.

Foghorn Leghorn, on 24 October 2011 - 01:20 AM, said:

I hear a lot of people talking about 'millions of zombies' in cities and  in other large areas. I have a problem with this. I can see hundreds of  zombies due to the nature of how the virus is spread. One or two  zombies can surprise a person and be pushed away while still getting a  bite in or two. The now bitten person becomes a zombie now making three  zombies, right? But what happens when you get 5 or more attacking one  person. They take the person down and devour most if not all of the  body. Now put that scenario on a larger scale. Zombie numbers would  eventually stop, or at least slow drastically down,  due to the zombies  consuming the majority of their victim's bodies. Throw in the slowness  of their movements (if they are runners, WE ARE FRACKED), the amount of  weaponry in some parts of this World, humanities violent nature,  and  there is an decent chance that such an outbreak will be contained. It'll  be messy, ugly, and unkind to many people but it would be contained.  Any opinions about this?

[Jonathan]

I've never seen a mathematical formula for zombie calculations... well done

[Zprime]

If you go by people infected then the prior posters.have a point. However if the dead are rising then they would continue to kill. Everyone who dies gets up to kill someone else. No matter how thy die. Bitten or not.

[Gettin_Grimey]

bit of a spoiler from the comic for those who havent read... but then again they use this in every good zombie movie anyway.

Spoiler

you dont have to be bitten to come back, you can just have a heart attack or some shit.

[PrisonerForLife]

Kind of off topic, but I'm going to say that this is kind of a good argument. I mean, eventually this series is going to have to end. Believe it or not. I mean, if they are in Alexandria, there's about 50 or so people there. Then, you have the other communities nearby which add up to maybe 350. That's 400 people already. And that's only in the DC area. Other places that less of a population such as Montana, Nevada, Nebraska, and other western states are probably WAY better off, and should they contact them, they could use teamwork to travel together and meet, then start back up society, shooting down zombies as they go, and clearing out overrun areas. Of course, they would have to save the Prison. I think that there is definetely a chance of the group heading back to the prison to kill the zombie versions of their old group members. I really hope this happens.

[backwoodsroamer]

Zprime, on 08 November 2011 - 11:38 PM, said:

If you go by people infected then the prior posters.have a point. However if the dead are rising then they would continue to kill. Everyone who dies gets up to kill someone else. No matter how thy die. Bitten or not.

I think you've hit the pivotal point of the whole equation.  If the pandemic were spread only by bites, I don't see the spread being unstoppable.  However, if all deaths by any means resulted in reanimation the spread would be much quicker.  

I also believe time from death to reanimation would be a huge factor.  Dr. Jenner said two minutes to eight hours.  Eight hours would allow time to deal with the body before reanimation.  Two minutes is a real nightmare scenario.  

As has been pointed out above, even a percentage of the population reanimating would result in a disaster. Particularly if, as has been stated, in TWD world there has been no previous concept of the undead.  The learning curve could prove insurmountable.