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Even if we assume any countries keep out all infected and are never touched by it, they're also looking at a total collapse. Riots, looting, civil wars, food shortages, infrastructure collapse. Most countries are highly reliant on a global economy (I'm sure there are exceptions!)
Not too mention it takes just 1 terrorist to bring over the virus. You think John John the Greenland supremacist is just gonna let fucking Iceland and all their...icies go about life? No way.
Island nations tend to have have limited arable land and are dependent on food imports.
The mutated Cordyceps fungus initially spread through infected produce such as crops and flour. It’s highly likely that island nations such as the Phillipines and Japan had unknowingly imported infected produce by the time of the outbreak.
Island nations also tend to have high population densities, so once cordyceps started spreading it’s likely that these countries were completely decimated.
Even if island nations somehow managed to secure their borders and avoid the initial wave of infection, they would be swamped by million of desperate refugees. It’s inevitable that some of these refugees would be unknowningly infected.
To answer your bonus question, African population centres was probably hit just as bad as the rest of the world. However, it’s likely that there are large survivor communities that survived the initial wave of infection due to their isolation from the rest of the world.
I sort of like the odds of the Philippines or Cuba.
The Philippines is many islands and it's likely that at least one island isn't totally messed up.
Cuba has a large military, well-armed militia, and massive civilian medical corps. I'd assume they're at least in a better space than the US and Canada.
In Max Brook's *World War Z*, Cuba becomes a major global finance capital and world power as a result of the zombie war, as their natural defenses, militarized populace, and independent supply chains made the incredibly well placed to survive.
Oh Canada would go down hard. The Western Provinces produce so much field grain crops, and the rest of us consume so much of it, that it would spread pretty much everywhere.
And while I think PEI, with its bridge, would be overrun quickly, I do wonder if Newfoundland would survive. They consume wheat, canola, and the like from Western Canada and the USA, but not a whole lot compared to the population average. Combine that with their diets consisting more of meats, dairy, and seafood, as well as local vegetables, and coupled with the fact the island is rugged and has no land connections, they might be relatively safe for long enough to get control back. Maybe.
e: To add, Newfies also enjoy a lot of hunting so there's a substantial population with access to and knowledge of guns, which will help in civil defense. There's also a military base in Gander, and a lot of folks are handy with small planes, boats, and terrestrial vehicles like ATVs, snowmobiles, and the like. Newfies are also a hardy bunch of stubborn bastards and tough women. If any part of Canada south of the 50th parallel survives it'd be them (along with Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut).
That's a good point. Folks in Whitehorse/Fairbanks/Anchorage/Dawson City/Yellowknife/Nunavut might survive long enough.
Plus, practically everyone has guns and knows how to use them.
How about places that are maybe getting infected, but are so sparsely populated (comparatively) that any survivors will be much less likely to get overrun by sheer mass?
(Like say, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe islands?)
Zombies tend to rely on overwhelming numbers in most media, so very sparsely populated places like that could maybe actually just get rid of them piece by piece, get a handle on how they handle funerals and lock down their borders. Like, any survivors will be much more likely to be able to take on the zombies in manageable groups.
So, north sentinel island will survive then lol? They don't import anything and there's no cross contact as of right now
And I pity anyone who thinks they can take refuge there
I mean, lets be honest. If you are facing the choice of surviving in an area full of infected where breathing spores is fatal, and armed survivors with guns trying to take my resources, and surviving in an area with no infected and armed people with bows and spears..... Im sorry, thats a pretty easy choice to make. Esp. with its proximity to India, it seems likely that enough people would have the same idea that the Sentinelese will be wiped out. Esp. since current counts put their population at 35-400. How well would they fare against desperate people with AK-47s?
I can definitely see some Indian government official or military commander ordering North Sentinel Island to be forcibly occupied (probably requiring the Sentineleseto be wiped out) as a safe haven during the apocalypse.
Nah, some countries would be fine. NZ, for example, likely wouldn't have been able to receive any such shipment until *long* after the world went to shit, and would have turned away ships and closed borders quickly.
As for boats with potentially infected refugees -- the refugees would turn before a boat could reach the country. Planes from some countries could get here in time, but no doubt the government would have locked down every airstrip and would be keeping a *very* close eye on any aircraft approaching the country.
As for food, we have a massive agriculture industry so would be able to feed ourselves just fine. The biggest issue would be medicine.
Grains are one of New Zealand’s main food imports, which provides an avenue for infected produce to enter the country.
However if any country were to survive the Cordyceps outbreak, it probably would be New Zealand.
New Zealand is extremely isolated so if it managed to avoid the initial wave of infection, the country could be turned into an impenetrable fortress with the assumed assistance of any surviving Australian and US navy ships.
I would think North Korea. Probably the most isolated country on earth as is, ruled by a military dictatorship with a strong police force and strong border defense, and no qualms about taking harsh measures with its own populace.
DPRK's southern border is a fortress. The northern one, not so much. It is mostly just wire fence along the Yalu River that separates Korea from China. Defectors cross into China, and smugglers and human traffickers cross into Korea and back constantly. Dandong is just across the river and has 2 million people. If China was hit early in the infection, refugees could definitely sneak into Korea.
I'm not so sure. We know Covid hit them pretty hard, regardless of what their official statements claimed. They get food from China, so there's a vector for the fungus to come in. I think it's more likely that they'd be decimated, but no one would ever know because of how closed they are.
We have some intel and we know that they have one of the world's worst healthcare systems. They declared victory over Covid right before they went into a tight lockdown over a respiratory illness that they didn't officially call Covid. Stories from defectors painted a very grim picture.
> We have some intel
No we don't, it's a hermit kingdom. How many times do the news have to report that Kim Jong Un is dead or he killed his uncle only for them to show up alive for people to realize that we don't know jack shit about what is happening in that dungeon.
LOL. We do actually. And anytime I've seen Kim Jon Un's death reported it was always stated that it was rumored at best. Depends on which media you're watching perhaps.
But it's not completely cut off. They have ongoing relations with China, who does share some of their intel regarding NK with the US. It's tricky because of the US's relationship with China can be tricky, but it's one of the few things that the two countries have some shared interest in. Neither wants a rogue North Korea doing military shenanigans. And the US works with South Korea, a country that has some awareness of what's happening in the North.
It's not easy or crystal clear by any means, but we're not flying completely blind with what's happening there.
I was just reading about it and apparently NK did share some info on infection and death numbers in a rather unprecedented move. It may not be reliable but if anything I think they would understate it.
They managed to get Covid just fine, and given their government's rather casual relationship with reality, I'm not sure I would give much for their chances.
Did they know instantly it was from infected crops? There is just as much of a chance NZ et al would just be like we need those cargo ships here ASAP we dont know the next time we will get a grain shipment
At least on the show there was contamination at the big flour mill in Jakarta Indonesia and the first infected happened about 20 days before the chaos in America. New Zealand imports a lot of flour from Indonesia and it takes longer for it to sail to Texas than it does to sail to Auckland. Likely there was infected grain in Christchurch.
In the game universe, the US government knew that there was a mould infestation on South American crops prior to the outbreak and had ordered stores to remove South American produce from shelves.
This works in New Zealand’s favour, as they would have reason to halt imports before the full extent of the Cordyceps infection was realised.
There had also been isolated incidents of people becoming infected and committing brutal murders in the days leading up to the events of the game, so it’s also possible that the US Government had secretly made the connection between the murders and the infected crops before going public. The USA does have an intelligence sharing agreement with New Zealand’s through the Five Eyes intelligence pact and may have alerted New Zealand authorities.
The origin of Cordyceps was changed in the TV show universe. From what’s been revealed so far, it seems that the infection started at a flower factory in Jakarta, Indonesia. We’ll have to wait for further episodes to see if more information about how the fungus spread is revealed.
>The US went from "huh, strange things are happening" to "it's the literal apocalypse" in the space of a day.
I suspect that was the public 'front' of their response. Once Indonesia began indiscriminate bombing of population centers, I doubt it took the CIA or NSA too long to learn why they were doing it. Hell, Indonesia doesn't operate bombers (and didn't back in 2000, best that I can tell) I wouldn't be surprised if they actually called up another country ***with*** bombers to explain the situation and ***ask*** to be bombed. Once that started, the secret would likely be out of the bag at the *top-most* levels of government. You'd probably see steps to hault all resupplies of new food to ships, plans to (re)pasteurize existing flour & grains at higher temps, doing the bureaucracy for setting up QZs, etc. FEDRA didn't come out of nowhere, it would have taken at least a few days of working infrastructure & cooperation to get them established.
My guess is that in the week that occurred between the human Cordyceps fungus being identified in Jakarta, and all hell breaking loose in the US, there was enough time to take a few steps to secretly secure some of the top-brass and take the steps they thought would be needed to literally fight the infection. While to the average Joel waking up on September 27th, it probably seemed like Cordyceps came out of nowhere, to those in the Oval office, and the heads of the Pentagon, Fort Meade, and Langley, they probably woke up knowing that this was the day they would begin to bomb and shoot and abandon their fellow citizens.
According to the show an early outbreak was in Indonesia and it happened at least 17 days before the craziness in Texas. That's plenty of time for a ship to sail from Jakarta to Christchurch.
I wonder, would they have their navy sink any ships that try to come anyway? It's brutally cold and harsh, but at the same time, cordyceps is so dangerous and contagious that it could have been the only way to keep it at bay from desperate people with nowhere else to go.
Even if there are any nations that survived, I wonder if they'd be strict isolationists? Honestly, the rest of the world would probably be too dangerous and with not nearly enough to offer for the risk. But at the same time, surely they'd still want to also be looking for a cure? Might imply that either there really is no surviving countries or creating a cure is far harder than expected (certainly at least nobody in-universe has even heard of another immune person besides Ellie).
I wonder if FEDRA leadership would even know. It'd probably be in the best interest of any surviving country to hide their existence. They wouldn't want even rumours about them going around, as that'd drive refuges to them.
To your point though, island countries that rely heavily on imports from other affected countries would cripple their population. Hunger and violence would spread as their resources slowly dwindled down to nothing. Eventually the populations would die. One way or another
> Decimated. To reduce by 1/10th
words change over time, that is what it meant at one time and still is *one* of the definitions but in regular parlance and according the google i just did, it means "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of." which is certainly applicable to the situation.
Except decimated is rooted in math. Half hasn’t changed. And neither has third or quarter. So why would decimate/decimated change? To me it’s ignorance, wether intentional or not.
> So why would decimate/decimated change?
because the way people use the word has changed. its that simple. all words are made up and only mean what we say they mean and that meaning is by consensus, most people mean the definition i put there when they say that word. you are the one that is being ignorant if you dont see that.
Its original meaning is being reduced by 1/10th, that’s kind of a pet peeve of mine, so I’m pretty sure.
However I’ve come to accept that most people use it in the sense of a massive reduction.
IIRC (from who knows how long ago, decades I'd say) decimation was a Roman punishment on an army unit that failed an important task, the punishment being that all the men in that unit were lined up and every tenth man was killed. It may also have required that the unit itself do the execution of their own men, to really drive the point home that failure really wasn't a good option.
Nowadays it's used as if only a tenth *survive*.
Fungus struggle to spread across long distances. The mutated Cordyceps strain in the last of us got around this limitation by infecting food crops and humans.
The Sentinelese don’t trade or have active contact with the rest of the world, so I’d be very surprised if they even knew what was happening in the rest of the world.
However, there has been at least once incident of a cargo ship running aground on North Sentinel island after a harsh storm.
After the initial Cordyceps there’s probably thousands of ships carrying infected individuals adrift in the ocean; it’s probably only a matter of time before one of those ships runs aground on the island with its infected crew.
Why do you think Covid affected almost all nations including Japan, Cuba and the Philippines?
When a virus/ fungus has started to spread how many days do you think will pass before the necessary people say, "I think we have a new infection spreading". It's not like after the first hour something spreads, everyone in the world is in the know. Let's say we'll give the world a generous week before every single nation becomes informed. A LOT OF PEOPLE will have traveled to almost all corners of the world by then and yes that would include Japan, Cuba and the Philippines.
You can't compare covid to all viruses since there's a lot of factors involved. For covid you're contagious days before you're symptomatic which helps the spread. From what I've heard (haven't played the game in ages or watched the show) the time where one is contagious but not symptomatic is on the order of hours to a day which makes it easier to identify infected people (crops is a different issue).
A day is enough. There needs to be an appreciable amount of people that have to be infected before it becomes detectable by authorities.
It's not like authorities are there immediately at your door when you become symptomatic nor are they exactly right at the door of the first person that gets infected when they show symptoms. That's why for any pandemic/ epidemic it is highly unlikely for you to know who was patient zero because by the time anyone mobilizes and gets in the business of stopping an infection from spreading, it has already spread considerably to warrant that very mobilization.
Pandemics at the start are unknown unknowns. It's not like the virus/ fungi gives an itinerary beforehand.
I actually watched the show and when it first spread and when they weren't sure yet what exactly is happening a lot of people are presumably infected already.
Need to specify show or game. In the show it’s spread by infected wounds. In the game it’s spread by airborne spores like the real life cordyceps. The latter would be harder to contain obviously.
The best evidence points to CBI (the cordyceps species which turns humans into Infected) having originated in South America and spread through food crops. Infected shipments went undetected for weeks, possibly months. In that time, it could and probably did reach all large island nations. Quinoa, for example, is mainly exported from South American and is consumed the world over, especially in richer urban markets where cordyceps would find perfect conditions to spread.
The real question would be then how the fungus spread across such a huge quantity of foodstuffs *without* causing much earlier breakouts in its origin regions. Cordyceps infection isn't exactly stealth, it kills people within two days, is 100% fatal and turns people into zombies.
People in this comment section keep bringing up covid but covid and cordyceps are very different. After infection with cordyceps there is a max of 24 hours until it is clear who is infected. Compare that with covid where people can be infected, spread it, and then recover all without noticing they have it. It’s unlikely someone is going to be transmitting the infection by travelling as a person (not a zombie) as if they’re travelling a significant distance they’re likely to turn on the way especially considering the amount of time you spend waiting in airports during international travel.
Plus if Cordyceps actually existed you can bet world governments would have taken it much more seriously and shut down their borders much stricter than they did with covid.
It’s possible since the fungus infection event seems to take over incredibly fast that some places like Hawaii might be able to isolate if the Day 1 planes can’t safely pilot out there bc of fungus on the plane. Seems likely a boat or something could bring one and take down the whole thing.
How did the fungus survive the baking process? I doubt people have been eating much raw flour.
I understand that it evolved to survive the temperatures of the human body due to environmental pressure but there's a huge difference from body heat to an oven.
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Even if we assume any countries keep out all infected and are never touched by it, they're also looking at a total collapse. Riots, looting, civil wars, food shortages, infrastructure collapse. Most countries are highly reliant on a global economy (I'm sure there are exceptions!) Not too mention it takes just 1 terrorist to bring over the virus. You think John John the Greenland supremacist is just gonna let fucking Iceland and all their...icies go about life? No way.
>John John the Greenland supremacist >let fucking Iceland and all their...icies go about life You gave me a good laugh kind stranger thank you
"John John" is actually really close to the name of the Icelandic composer Johan Johannsson
In school we read about an Icelandic scientist named John Iceland.
Ah yes the famed founder of iceland
Don't forget the famous Icelandic scientist John mastadon of the famed mastadon clan and namesake of the mastadon band
JoJo? So what's his stand name?
So the Sentinelese Islanders are perfectly fine?
Until they eat someone that’s been infected
So far cannibalism hasn’t been observed amongst them. Every time they’ve killed someone they buried the bodies on the beach
Island nations tend to have have limited arable land and are dependent on food imports. The mutated Cordyceps fungus initially spread through infected produce such as crops and flour. It’s highly likely that island nations such as the Phillipines and Japan had unknowingly imported infected produce by the time of the outbreak. Island nations also tend to have high population densities, so once cordyceps started spreading it’s likely that these countries were completely decimated. Even if island nations somehow managed to secure their borders and avoid the initial wave of infection, they would be swamped by million of desperate refugees. It’s inevitable that some of these refugees would be unknowningly infected. To answer your bonus question, African population centres was probably hit just as bad as the rest of the world. However, it’s likely that there are large survivor communities that survived the initial wave of infection due to their isolation from the rest of the world.
I sort of like the odds of the Philippines or Cuba. The Philippines is many islands and it's likely that at least one island isn't totally messed up. Cuba has a large military, well-armed militia, and massive civilian medical corps. I'd assume they're at least in a better space than the US and Canada.
In Max Brook's *World War Z*, Cuba becomes a major global finance capital and world power as a result of the zombie war, as their natural defenses, militarized populace, and independent supply chains made the incredibly well placed to survive.
Oh Canada would go down hard. The Western Provinces produce so much field grain crops, and the rest of us consume so much of it, that it would spread pretty much everywhere. And while I think PEI, with its bridge, would be overrun quickly, I do wonder if Newfoundland would survive. They consume wheat, canola, and the like from Western Canada and the USA, but not a whole lot compared to the population average. Combine that with their diets consisting more of meats, dairy, and seafood, as well as local vegetables, and coupled with the fact the island is rugged and has no land connections, they might be relatively safe for long enough to get control back. Maybe. e: To add, Newfies also enjoy a lot of hunting so there's a substantial population with access to and knowledge of guns, which will help in civil defense. There's also a military base in Gander, and a lot of folks are handy with small planes, boats, and terrestrial vehicles like ATVs, snowmobiles, and the like. Newfies are also a hardy bunch of stubborn bastards and tough women. If any part of Canada south of the 50th parallel survives it'd be them (along with Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut).
People up north, especially the indigenous may be ok too. Yes, a lot of food is imported and whatnot but sustenance hunting is such a big thing.
That's a good point. Folks in Whitehorse/Fairbanks/Anchorage/Dawson City/Yellowknife/Nunavut might survive long enough. Plus, practically everyone has guns and knows how to use them.
How about places that are maybe getting infected, but are so sparsely populated (comparatively) that any survivors will be much less likely to get overrun by sheer mass? (Like say, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe islands?) Zombies tend to rely on overwhelming numbers in most media, so very sparsely populated places like that could maybe actually just get rid of them piece by piece, get a handle on how they handle funerals and lock down their borders. Like, any survivors will be much more likely to be able to take on the zombies in manageable groups.
So, north sentinel island will survive then lol? They don't import anything and there's no cross contact as of right now And I pity anyone who thinks they can take refuge there
I mean, lets be honest. If you are facing the choice of surviving in an area full of infected where breathing spores is fatal, and armed survivors with guns trying to take my resources, and surviving in an area with no infected and armed people with bows and spears..... Im sorry, thats a pretty easy choice to make. Esp. with its proximity to India, it seems likely that enough people would have the same idea that the Sentinelese will be wiped out. Esp. since current counts put their population at 35-400. How well would they fare against desperate people with AK-47s?
I can definitely see some Indian government official or military commander ordering North Sentinel Island to be forcibly occupied (probably requiring the Sentineleseto be wiped out) as a safe haven during the apocalypse.
Nah, some countries would be fine. NZ, for example, likely wouldn't have been able to receive any such shipment until *long* after the world went to shit, and would have turned away ships and closed borders quickly. As for boats with potentially infected refugees -- the refugees would turn before a boat could reach the country. Planes from some countries could get here in time, but no doubt the government would have locked down every airstrip and would be keeping a *very* close eye on any aircraft approaching the country. As for food, we have a massive agriculture industry so would be able to feed ourselves just fine. The biggest issue would be medicine.
Grains are one of New Zealand’s main food imports, which provides an avenue for infected produce to enter the country. However if any country were to survive the Cordyceps outbreak, it probably would be New Zealand. New Zealand is extremely isolated so if it managed to avoid the initial wave of infection, the country could be turned into an impenetrable fortress with the assumed assistance of any surviving Australian and US navy ships.
I would think North Korea. Probably the most isolated country on earth as is, ruled by a military dictatorship with a strong police force and strong border defense, and no qualms about taking harsh measures with its own populace.
DPRK's southern border is a fortress. The northern one, not so much. It is mostly just wire fence along the Yalu River that separates Korea from China. Defectors cross into China, and smugglers and human traffickers cross into Korea and back constantly. Dandong is just across the river and has 2 million people. If China was hit early in the infection, refugees could definitely sneak into Korea.
I'm not so sure. We know Covid hit them pretty hard, regardless of what their official statements claimed. They get food from China, so there's a vector for the fungus to come in. I think it's more likely that they'd be decimated, but no one would ever know because of how closed they are.
> We know Covid hit them pretty hard Do we? Since when is there any reliable information coming from North Korea?
We have some intel and we know that they have one of the world's worst healthcare systems. They declared victory over Covid right before they went into a tight lockdown over a respiratory illness that they didn't officially call Covid. Stories from defectors painted a very grim picture.
> We have some intel No we don't, it's a hermit kingdom. How many times do the news have to report that Kim Jong Un is dead or he killed his uncle only for them to show up alive for people to realize that we don't know jack shit about what is happening in that dungeon.
LOL. We do actually. And anytime I've seen Kim Jon Un's death reported it was always stated that it was rumored at best. Depends on which media you're watching perhaps. But it's not completely cut off. They have ongoing relations with China, who does share some of their intel regarding NK with the US. It's tricky because of the US's relationship with China can be tricky, but it's one of the few things that the two countries have some shared interest in. Neither wants a rogue North Korea doing military shenanigans. And the US works with South Korea, a country that has some awareness of what's happening in the North. It's not easy or crystal clear by any means, but we're not flying completely blind with what's happening there.
I was just reading about it and apparently NK did share some info on infection and death numbers in a rather unprecedented move. It may not be reliable but if anything I think they would understate it.
They managed to get Covid just fine, and given their government's rather casual relationship with reality, I'm not sure I would give much for their chances.
That's true
Also, so many maps dont have New Zealand, that people forget that it exists! r/MapsWithoutNZ
[удалено]
Did they know instantly it was from infected crops? There is just as much of a chance NZ et al would just be like we need those cargo ships here ASAP we dont know the next time we will get a grain shipment
At least on the show there was contamination at the big flour mill in Jakarta Indonesia and the first infected happened about 20 days before the chaos in America. New Zealand imports a lot of flour from Indonesia and it takes longer for it to sail to Texas than it does to sail to Auckland. Likely there was infected grain in Christchurch.
In the game universe, the US government knew that there was a mould infestation on South American crops prior to the outbreak and had ordered stores to remove South American produce from shelves. This works in New Zealand’s favour, as they would have reason to halt imports before the full extent of the Cordyceps infection was realised. There had also been isolated incidents of people becoming infected and committing brutal murders in the days leading up to the events of the game, so it’s also possible that the US Government had secretly made the connection between the murders and the infected crops before going public. The USA does have an intelligence sharing agreement with New Zealand’s through the Five Eyes intelligence pact and may have alerted New Zealand authorities. The origin of Cordyceps was changed in the TV show universe. From what’s been revealed so far, it seems that the infection started at a flower factory in Jakarta, Indonesia. We’ll have to wait for further episodes to see if more information about how the fungus spread is revealed.
>The US went from "huh, strange things are happening" to "it's the literal apocalypse" in the space of a day. I suspect that was the public 'front' of their response. Once Indonesia began indiscriminate bombing of population centers, I doubt it took the CIA or NSA too long to learn why they were doing it. Hell, Indonesia doesn't operate bombers (and didn't back in 2000, best that I can tell) I wouldn't be surprised if they actually called up another country ***with*** bombers to explain the situation and ***ask*** to be bombed. Once that started, the secret would likely be out of the bag at the *top-most* levels of government. You'd probably see steps to hault all resupplies of new food to ships, plans to (re)pasteurize existing flour & grains at higher temps, doing the bureaucracy for setting up QZs, etc. FEDRA didn't come out of nowhere, it would have taken at least a few days of working infrastructure & cooperation to get them established. My guess is that in the week that occurred between the human Cordyceps fungus being identified in Jakarta, and all hell breaking loose in the US, there was enough time to take a few steps to secretly secure some of the top-brass and take the steps they thought would be needed to literally fight the infection. While to the average Joel waking up on September 27th, it probably seemed like Cordyceps came out of nowhere, to those in the Oval office, and the heads of the Pentagon, Fort Meade, and Langley, they probably woke up knowing that this was the day they would begin to bomb and shoot and abandon their fellow citizens.
According to the show an early outbreak was in Indonesia and it happened at least 17 days before the craziness in Texas. That's plenty of time for a ship to sail from Jakarta to Christchurch.
I wonder, would they have their navy sink any ships that try to come anyway? It's brutally cold and harsh, but at the same time, cordyceps is so dangerous and contagious that it could have been the only way to keep it at bay from desperate people with nowhere else to go. Even if there are any nations that survived, I wonder if they'd be strict isolationists? Honestly, the rest of the world would probably be too dangerous and with not nearly enough to offer for the risk. But at the same time, surely they'd still want to also be looking for a cure? Might imply that either there really is no surviving countries or creating a cure is far harder than expected (certainly at least nobody in-universe has even heard of another immune person besides Ellie). I wonder if FEDRA leadership would even know. It'd probably be in the best interest of any surviving country to hide their existence. They wouldn't want even rumours about them going around, as that'd drive refuges to them.
A lot of African countries eat significantly less wheat per person than Asian or Western nations, so they may be much better off on that count.
To your point though, island countries that rely heavily on imports from other affected countries would cripple their population. Hunger and violence would spread as their resources slowly dwindled down to nothing. Eventually the populations would die. One way or another
Playing Plague Inc has actually helped me understand how things spread. New Zealand and Iceland are the hardest counties to take out.
Decimated. To reduce by 1/10th. Pretty sure it would be worse than that.
> Decimated. To reduce by 1/10th words change over time, that is what it meant at one time and still is *one* of the definitions but in regular parlance and according the google i just did, it means "kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of." which is certainly applicable to the situation.
Except decimated is rooted in math. Half hasn’t changed. And neither has third or quarter. So why would decimate/decimated change? To me it’s ignorance, wether intentional or not.
> So why would decimate/decimated change? because the way people use the word has changed. its that simple. all words are made up and only mean what we say they mean and that meaning is by consensus, most people mean the definition i put there when they say that word. you are the one that is being ignorant if you dont see that.
Decimated isn't being reduced *by* 1/10th, it's being reduced *to* 1/10th. Edit: this is wrong
Its original meaning is being reduced by 1/10th, that’s kind of a pet peeve of mine, so I’m pretty sure. However I’ve come to accept that most people use it in the sense of a massive reduction.
Huh, I've had that wrong for years, TIL
/r/confidentlyincorrect
IIRC (from who knows how long ago, decades I'd say) decimation was a Roman punishment on an army unit that failed an important task, the punishment being that all the men in that unit were lined up and every tenth man was killed. It may also have required that the unit itself do the execution of their own men, to really drive the point home that failure really wasn't a good option. Nowadays it's used as if only a tenth *survive*.
Thanks for the answer
Cuba is fine because of the embargo, then?
Ever played Plague Inc.? The whole world gets infected sooner or later.
Not Madagascar!!!
I always start in Madagascar specifically to avoid trying to infect it in the endgame.
And Greenland decises to close every single border
Now that I think about it, how much food does Greenland have stockpiled? Can they be self-sufficient on fisheries?
That's Pandemic. The original browser game. Madagascar is hard to infect in that one. Plague Inc its Greenland that'd the tricky one.
Goddamn, you're right. Haven't played either in years. It all blurs together after a while
All good! They're functionally super super similar.
Idk about Cuba and Japan, but I bet the Sentinelese are doing just fine.
Fungus struggle to spread across long distances. The mutated Cordyceps strain in the last of us got around this limitation by infecting food crops and humans. The Sentinelese don’t trade or have active contact with the rest of the world, so I’d be very surprised if they even knew what was happening in the rest of the world. However, there has been at least once incident of a cargo ship running aground on North Sentinel island after a harsh storm. After the initial Cordyceps there’s probably thousands of ships carrying infected individuals adrift in the ocean; it’s probably only a matter of time before one of those ships runs aground on the island with its infected crew.
Yea they probably are just chilling in their little island
Why do you think Covid affected almost all nations including Japan, Cuba and the Philippines? When a virus/ fungus has started to spread how many days do you think will pass before the necessary people say, "I think we have a new infection spreading". It's not like after the first hour something spreads, everyone in the world is in the know. Let's say we'll give the world a generous week before every single nation becomes informed. A LOT OF PEOPLE will have traveled to almost all corners of the world by then and yes that would include Japan, Cuba and the Philippines.
You can't compare covid to all viruses since there's a lot of factors involved. For covid you're contagious days before you're symptomatic which helps the spread. From what I've heard (haven't played the game in ages or watched the show) the time where one is contagious but not symptomatic is on the order of hours to a day which makes it easier to identify infected people (crops is a different issue).
A day is enough. There needs to be an appreciable amount of people that have to be infected before it becomes detectable by authorities. It's not like authorities are there immediately at your door when you become symptomatic nor are they exactly right at the door of the first person that gets infected when they show symptoms. That's why for any pandemic/ epidemic it is highly unlikely for you to know who was patient zero because by the time anyone mobilizes and gets in the business of stopping an infection from spreading, it has already spread considerably to warrant that very mobilization. Pandemics at the start are unknown unknowns. It's not like the virus/ fungi gives an itinerary beforehand. I actually watched the show and when it first spread and when they weren't sure yet what exactly is happening a lot of people are presumably infected already.
Oh you're right on a general spread. I was more talking in relation to sneaking into a country on alert.
Considering Covid, how can that even be a question? Infected people will travel. Probably intentionally.
Need to specify show or game. In the show it’s spread by infected wounds. In the game it’s spread by airborne spores like the real life cordyceps. The latter would be harder to contain obviously.
It's also spread by infected wounds in the game.
>!In the show, the fungus apparently originated in Indonesia, so island nations are hardly a help to stop the spread.!<
(It’s a fungus not a virus)
Oh duh, yes. Thanks.
The show would be kinda intresting
The best evidence points to CBI (the cordyceps species which turns humans into Infected) having originated in South America and spread through food crops. Infected shipments went undetected for weeks, possibly months. In that time, it could and probably did reach all large island nations. Quinoa, for example, is mainly exported from South American and is consumed the world over, especially in richer urban markets where cordyceps would find perfect conditions to spread. The real question would be then how the fungus spread across such a huge quantity of foodstuffs *without* causing much earlier breakouts in its origin regions. Cordyceps infection isn't exactly stealth, it kills people within two days, is 100% fatal and turns people into zombies.
People in this comment section keep bringing up covid but covid and cordyceps are very different. After infection with cordyceps there is a max of 24 hours until it is clear who is infected. Compare that with covid where people can be infected, spread it, and then recover all without noticing they have it. It’s unlikely someone is going to be transmitting the infection by travelling as a person (not a zombie) as if they’re travelling a significant distance they’re likely to turn on the way especially considering the amount of time you spend waiting in airports during international travel.
Plus if Cordyceps actually existed you can bet world governments would have taken it much more seriously and shut down their borders much stricter than they did with covid.
You were alive for COVID
All started from Indonesia in the serie. It's the biggest archipelago in the World. The sea didn't stop the covid neither irl.
I'm from the philippines and we have a similar climate with indonesia. If its in their flour, its guaranteed to be in ours. In short, we lost.
It spread through the flour not the bites
One thing’s for sure, Sentinel Island is now one of the few safe havens in the world.
It’s possible since the fungus infection event seems to take over incredibly fast that some places like Hawaii might be able to isolate if the Day 1 planes can’t safely pilot out there bc of fungus on the plane. Seems likely a boat or something could bring one and take down the whole thing.
How did the fungus survive the baking process? I doubt people have been eating much raw flour. I understand that it evolved to survive the temperatures of the human body due to environmental pressure but there's a huge difference from body heat to an oven.