Siberia Zombie Virus: How Likely Is an Actual Living Dead Apocalypse?

A 48,500-year-old "zombie" virus has been revived by a team of European scientists from the permafrost in Siberia. Its very name has sparked fears in many that a zombie pandemic might soon be on the horizon. But the virus itself is no threat to humans—it only infects amoeba.

Still, hundreds of Twitter users raised concerns about the research, saying that the revived viruses could open up a Pandora's box of infectious disease—a play on the name of the oldest isolated virus, Pandoravirus yedoma.

These fears are not new and, in August 2022, a trend on TikTok sparked widespread panic that a real-life zombie outbreak was ongoing in China. #Zombieinchina received over 20 million views on the social media app, with users sharing their "experience" of the supposed outbreak. In one video, "leaked" security footage from what appears to be a morgue shows a person presumed dead waking up from beneath his shroud.

The viral videos were quickly debunked, but it still leaves the question: could a zombie apocalypse ever be possible?

What Is a Zombie?

Matt Mogk, the director of the Zombie Research Society—an organization dedicated to the scientific, historic, and cultural study of the living dead—defines zombies as a reanimated human corpse that is relentlessly aggressive, biologically infected, and infectious. This first rule can, however, be bypassed in the case of the so-called living "rage" zombies in the film 28 Days Later, who fall victim to a mind-altering infection that causes uncontrollable, murderous anger.

Zombies are an established pillar of popular culture, from the swarming antagonists in World War Z to the comic relief of Shaun of the Dead. Zombie folklore is thought to have originated in modern-day Haiti in the 17th century, when West African people were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to work as slaves on sugar plantations. A zombie was a person–neither dead nor alive–who was enslaved into mindlessness, trapped in a living death of eternal labor.

This folklore was intertwined with the practice of Vodou and inspired the first ever zombie movie—Victor Halperin's White Zombie—in 1932. The movie was produced 36 years before George A. Romero's iconic Night of the Living Dead, which many claim to be the birth of the zombie trope in popular culture.

Zombie Virus

Tara C. Smith is a professor in epidemiology at Kent State University of Public Health. She studies infectious diseases, particularly emerging zoonotic infections, those that are transferred between animals and humans. She also serves as an advisor for the Zombie Research Society.

Newsweek asked Smith how a real-life zombie outbreak might play out.

"In reality, [it is] extremely unlikely," she told Newsweek. "There really isn't a mechanism to reanimate one from the dead, especially the long dead."

However, she said that an outbreak of rage zombies, controlled by an anger-inducing virus, might just be plausible. "There certainly are some microbes which can change behavior and lead to aggression, with the rabies virus being the best known."

Rabies is a fatal viral disease that is largely spread between dogs, wolves and raccoons. However, if a human is bitten or scratched by an infected animal, they too can become infected.

Humans are not the target species for this virus—we typically do not bite those around us and usually die from the infection before we can pass it on—but its effects can still be seen in human behavior.

To facilitate its own transmission, rabies hijacks the brains of its victims. Animals that were once timid and friendly become aggressive under its influence, biting anything that moves and passing on the virus through their infected saliva.

The rabies virus attacks the central nervous system and can induce states of anxiety, confusion, partial paralysis, hallucinations, and a fear of water.

Another common brain-altering parasite is Toxoplasma gondii, which is thought to infect between 30 and 50 percent of the world's human population, and about one in 10 people in the U.S. The parasite originates from animals, especially cats, and can be passed on through contact with infected animals or contaminated food and water. Infection can result in flu-like symptoms, eye disease and lung or brain damage in people with weakened immune systems. However, most people do not display visible symptoms, at least not symptoms that we would normally associate with a viral infection.

Scientists have found that this parasite can actually change the behavior of its host. Infected mice lose their fear of cats, and dormant infections in humans have been associated with schizophrenia, risky behavior and suicide, although the infection itself has not yet been proven as the direct cause.

"There has been some discussion about whether infection changes human behavior or not, possibly making some infected humans more likely to take risks, but it's certainly not a dramatic behavioral change like we see with zombies," Smith said. "No one is eating brains."

CDC Zombie Apocalypse

Like any disaster, preparedness pays when you are faced with a zombie apocalypse. In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a campaign on the importance of emergency preparation, under the guise of a zombie apocalypse. Part of the campaign, Preparedness 101: Zombie pandemic, included a pamphlet detailing an emergency kit checklist for any disaster situation, including the fictitious scenario of zombies.

The CDC's emergency checklist includes:

• Water–one gallon per person per day
• Food–minimum 3 day supply
• Flashlight
• Battery-powered or hand-crank radio
• Batteries
• First aid kit and medications
• Extra cash
• Cell phone with charger
• Blanket
• Personal hygiene items, like toilet roll

The campaign and related blog have since been removed, but the advice still stands on how to prepare yourself and your family for any future emergencies.

Where Should You Hide in a Zombie Apocalypse?

If a pack of zombies came knocking at your door, your options for hiding places would be fairly limited to whatever you have in your house. But, if you had some advance warning, where could you go to survive the apocalypse?

Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist who studies how life can survive in different environments, told National Geographic that the best place to wait out a zombie apocalypse was somewhere that most of us usually avoid. "One of the safest locations would be a prison," he said. "With their high walls and barbed wire fences, they're great at keeping people in, but of course, they're also great at keeping people out."

A study by researchers at Cornell University used mathematical disease modeling to find out where in the U.S. was the best place to hide from the zombie apocalypse. Their simulation showed that people in the cities and suburbs would be wiped out within a matter of days. But the remote mountains of Montana and Nevada remained zombie free for over four months.

Running off to the Rockies will not be an option for everyone. In 2014, the American Chemical Society shared an alternative solution by chemist Raychelle Burks for the people who get stuck at home.

While computer games and zombie movies might suggest otherwise, the best way to arm yourself against the living dead could be a simple chemical concoction. If the TV show The Walking Dead is anything to go by, zombies love the smell of living human flesh. Therefore, Burks came up with the idea of a bio-based zombie repellent, or death cologne, made to mimic the smell of rotting flesh and mask your own vivacious scent.

Real Zombies

While human "zombies" are yet to be discovered, zombie-like traits are seen throughout the animal kingdom.

"We see many of these parasites in the natural world, especially among invertebrates [like] insects and spiders," Philippe Fernandez-Fournier, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia told Newsweek. "Parasitoid wasps are in fact so common and diverse that many insect species have a specialized wasp that targets them specifically."

In 2018, Fernandez-Fournier and his fellow researchers described the apparent zombification of a species of spider by a parasitoid wasp.

"We believe the parasite is injecting a type of hormone into the spider that hijacks the spider's brain," Fernandez-Fournier said. "This substance then forces the spider to do a simple, more primitive task over and over again. This results in a 'zombified' spider that doesn't act as she usually does and repetitively lays silk to build an enclosed web for the parasite.

"Generally, 'zombifying' parasites tend to tap into the brain to make their host perform a behavior obsessively and it is a surprisingly simple mechanism."

Parasitoid wasps are not the only species that can elicit these zombie-like behaviors. The fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a deadly parasite of the North American carpenter ant. When an ant becomes infected, the fungus takes over the insect's mind, compelling it to climb to the tops tree branches or blades of grass, where the ant then freezes and dies. At this heightened elevation, the fungus can more widely spread its spores, ready to infect its next victim.

"A parasite like this is not likely to spillover to humans," Fernandez-Fournier said. "But never say never! The parasite would simply have to hijack a pathway in the brain associated with a specific behavior. Sometimes a whole pathway can be changed with a simple target, so it isn't too unlikely."

The possibility of a human zombie pandemic is extremely unlikely but, as said by the CDC, it always pays to be prepared.

References

Flegr J, Prandota J, Sovičková M, Israili ZH. Toxoplasmosis–a global threat. Correlation of latent toxoplasmosis with specific disease burden in a set of 88 countries. PLoS One. March 24 2014 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090203

Johnson HJ, Koshy AA, Latent Toxoplasmosis Effects on Rodents and Humans: How Much is Real and How Much is Media Hype?, mBio, March 17 2020 https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02164-19

Alemi AA, et al., You can run, you can hide: The epidemiology and statistical mechanics of zombies, Physical Review E, November 2 2015, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.052801

Fernandez-Fournier P, Straus S, Sharpe R, Avilés L, Behavioral modification of a social spider by a parasitoid wasp, Ecological Entomology, November 4 2018, https://doi.org/10.1111/een.12698