Zombie Apocolypse, How bad could it really be?

[MoonSylver]

Here's some of the observations I used to make over at HPOTD back in the day when the subject would come up:

Let's assume for a minute that the zed's aren't going away anytime soon. As in; if we can accept the premise that something reanimates a dead guy & makes him get up, walk around, & eat people, then it isn't too far fetched to assume this "whatever" may have made any other number of biological changes to facilitate their long term "survival" such as: rendering them "unpalatable" to insect/animal predation, changing the composition of their fluids or tissues in ways to resist freezing/dehydration in extremes, to slow decomposition, etc.

Now, if we're assuming this is a NOTLD style "anyone who dies gets up & kills" scenario here is a look at how many of them there would be, JUST BASED ON CURRENT DEATH RATES:

1.78 deaths per second
107 deaths per minute
6,390 deaths per hour
153,000 deaths per day
56.0 million deaths per year

Now, I point out CURRENT as even if we were to suppose that, say, one in every three or four of them manages to bite someone before being put down, that still leads to a somewhat geometric progression ( 1 becomes 2, 2 become 4, 4 become 8, etc.)

Add also all the deaths that the LIVING would cause. Rioting. Looting. Settling scores. Accidental shootings. etc. Then add in with all of that going on how likely various utilities & services would collapse. Everything from power, water, sewage, to shipments of food to grocers. Starvation, lack of medical services, disease, etc. contributes even more deaths.

How quickly we determined what was happening & how to appropriately to react would be a factor. If we figured it out quickly & started putting them down en mass right away it could probably be contained before we reached the tipping point. But given how slowly we react many times to NATURAL disasters that WE KNOW ARE COMING, such an UNNATURAL disaster, & one that would be so hard for many to even accept WAS HAPPENING, &divisive on many moral & ethical levels could lead to a major delay in formulating an appropriate response & enacting it. If that happened to the point their numbers overwhelmed us, then it would be too late.

Extinction level event? No. Collapse of society, possibly even civilization? Maybe? Possibly? Probably?