Zombie apocolypse gives humans just 100 days to live UK Study
© pixababy
The zombie virus would spread through the human population at a rate faster than the black death, according to a study from UK scientists.

Once introduced on Earth, the zombie virus would condemn the human population to extinction in less than six months, scientists at Leicester University (UK) have calculated.

Assuming that a zombie can find one person each day, and has a 90 percent success rate in infecting victims with the virus, the researchers found that humans would be facing extinction after just 100 days.

On day 100 there would be just 273 human survivors, outnumbered a million to one by zombies.

However, the researchers cautioned that the 90 percent zombification rate of their model, a rate of contagion higher than the black death, could change over the course of the epidemic, giving humans more time. "As the zombie to human ratio increases, this becomes less realistic," they wrote in their paper, called "A Zombie Epidemic" and published in the journal Physics Special Topics. "We have also not included the possibility for the humans to kill the zombies. Including this may give the humans a better chance at survival."


Comment: The Black Death had a pretty impressive infection rate, something similar is just as probable, and it wouldn't be hampered by malnourished and defeated zombies. It's origin and transmission is still being debated by the scientific community: New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection

And if recent events are anything to go by, modern day flesh eating zombies are not necessarily confined to science fiction: Is Solar and Cosmic Radiation Playing Havoc With Life on Planet Earth?


The researchers used a mathematical model called "SIR," which is generally used to investigate the spread of disease. Their model takes into account zombies' ability to cross geographical barriers, the different rates of infection in more or less densely populated areas, and gives zombies a lifetime of 20 days before they die from starvation or thirst.