World of the Living Dead

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently set out guidelines on how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.

Assistant Surgeon General Ali S. Khan issued the following advice to US citizens: ”sit down with your family and come up with an emergency plan. This includes where you would go and who you would call if zombies started appearing outside your door step”.

“Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance!”

The CDC is obviously trying to get people to think about any emergency, but it’s great to see that preparations have been made for the rise of the living dead.

If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas (I will be volunteering the young nameless disease detectives for the field work).

But it’s also clear that the CDC is far behind the National Emergency Control and Relief Agency (NECRA) in World of the Living Dead, which has much more drastic measures in place for ensuring the survival of humanity…