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How did the infection manage to take Knox in three days?


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1 hour ago, Lightning Flash said:

The radio broadcasts say that people are getting sick in Louisville without bites or scratches, implying that it's airborne. But even then, how likely is it that all of these towns collapsed in just three days? I've always wondered that.

 

In-game, Muldraugh and West Point have a combined estimated population of about 5000. With the addition of Rosewood, March Ridge, and Riverside, we can add, say, at least 3000 more to that number. So that's approximately 8000 people within the Exclusion Zone. Again, this is merely an estimate. 

 

Now let's do some math. There's going to be a lot of speculation and estimation here, so the results may not necessarily be accurate. But it might give us an idea of the infectiousness of the disease. We'd have to know the R-naught of the virus, which we obviously don't, so we'll estimate. We'll take the R-naught of two well known infectious diseases, measles (which is airborne) and diptheria (which is transmitted through saliva) and combine them. The R-naught of measles is 12-18 while the R-naught of diptheria is 6-7. So let's say the Knox virus has an R-naught of 10, the relative middle of those two diseases. This means that a single person can infect 10 people, and those people can infect 10 more people, and so on. 

 

Let's say that the R-naught of 10 occurs every hour over the course of three days. Thus, at 00:00 A.M. on Day 1, Patient Zero will infect 10 people. At 1:00 A.M., each of those 10 people will infect 10 more people, and so on. How many hours would it take for the number of infected to exceed the population of Knox County? Just four: 10^4 = 10,000. So in less than four hours, the virus with an R-naught of 10 will have infected everyone in Knox County (though there may be those who are immune to the airborne strain.) 

 

Then the infected start dying. How long one survives infection varies, so let's estimate that the average time from infection to death is 12 hours. That means by approximately noon of Day 1, the first death will have occurred. Then the deaths, like the infection, will multiply exponentially, exacerbated by the fact that the dead come back to life and hunt the living. Chaos and panic only lead to further death. The few who were immune to the airborne strain (let's say, roughly 2000) will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of undead. With the number of fatalities increasing exponentially by the hour, my best guess is that Knox County will be devastated by noon of Day 2. 

 

Again, this is all speculation. And I'm not good at math. So I could be COMPLETELY wrong. But I thought I'd take a shot and see if I could provide some kind of explanation.   

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Its very much a mix of several factors, how quickly the infection spread out over those few days, the panic of the civilians, police and military caught up in the crisis, and the lack of preparedness by said police and military.

 

Lets assume in game, that this is the first reported outbreak of a zombie infection in the world, everyone will be dumbfounded as to how this has occurred, and once word of hundreds of deaths start coming in due to an unknown infection / virus, you can be damn sure every major resource available both locally and nationally will be diverted to the infection zone to try and contain it, as well as research the incident as fast as possible in order to find out what is going on... By every major resource available, i mean literally every major resource that is available to local and national government officials, you would see hundreds, even thousands of military, police, medical and science forces being sent in to help contain the infection as well as gather samples of the infection from injured civilians and dead zombies in order to work out how the infection spreads, what the infection generally is and what the virus genetic build up is.

 

Sending in thousands of soldiers, police officers, scientists and doctors would take a while to organize, the military and police would need to be briefed on the threat of the infection and prepare their equipment ready so they can be deployed into the infection zone, i would safely assume by equipment, the police and military would be bringing in, Handguns, Shotguns, Rifles, Ammunition, Personal First Aid Kits, Radios, Body Armour, Torches, Barb Wire, Tents, Fire Extinguishers, as well as prepare their transportation, for something on this scale, they would be bringing everything, Police Car's, SWAT Van's, Helicopter's, Humvee's, Ambulances, Military Trucks, and every single vehicle will be packed full of equipment, so they can establish a Control Center and start building up a base, where tents will be put up, buildings will be cleared, cleaned out, occupied and reinforced, all major roads into and out of the infection zone will be swarmed with police and military who will set up roadblocks, preventing anyone from entering the area and may even prevent people from leaving. 

 

Now all of this will take time, a considerable amount of time, it'll take a few days at least to get the military, police, doctors etc all assembled, and getting their equipment loaded up as well as traveling to the infection zone as well.

 

Here is a general time line of what i feel would have happened and most likely happened in game.

 

Day 1: 9AM - Multiple casualties reported following what is assumed to be a large public disturbance, possibly reported as a riot, the local police force is deployed to area to stop the disturbance.

 

Day 1: 11AM - The riot has spread into the surrounding areas, and both the local police station and hospital is swarmed with frightened and injured civilians seeking shelter... Injuries appear to be bites and scratches.

 

Day 1: 12AM - Multiple groups of armed civilians are seen protecting their businesses and homes from the presumed rioters and are seen firing guns and striking rioters with blunt weapons such as bats and crowbars.

 

Day 1: 1PM - The National Media Outlets have descended into the area to report the incident and get footage of the riot.

 

Day 1: 3PM - The local mayor has declared a local emergency and requests assistance from both the state and national government, as well as declaring a curfew of 8PM to 8AM to allow law enforcement to work unhindered... A large number of police officers and doctors from nearby towns, descend into the area to provide assistance.

 

Day 1: 4PM - State government officials agree to send in the military and offer extra police, doctors and fire fighters to help stop the disturbance from spreading.

 

Day 1: 6PM - The state military / national guard, start to prepare for their deployment into the area as well as get briefed on the situation.

 

Day 1: 7PM - Darkness begins to spread and the curfew is met with a mixed reception, most civilians start locking up their houses and businesses and prepare to wait out the first night, while a large group of scared civilians start to loot the local shops for supplies, the local pharmacies, food markets, hardware shops and gun shops are quickly looted, and some buildings are even set ablaze.

 

Day 1: 8PM - The curfew starts and large groups of civilians lock themselves into secure areas including the local church, hospital, police station and Twiggys Bar, the police have to contend with both large groups of infected, and groups of armed looters, multiple police officers are killed and injured over night.

 

Day 2: 9AM - A group of civilians that took shelter at Twiggys Bar decide to leave the city, they collect as much food, medical supplies, guns and ammunition as they can find, and load up multiple cars, and proceed to leave the area as quickly as possible... Of the small convoy that left, only a few cars manage to leave city while most of the convoy is surrounded by the infected and subsequently killed.

 

Day 2: 12AM - The first of the state national guard arrive and start building a small Forward Operating Base to organize their soldiers and deploy them into the worst affected areas.

 

Day 2: 3PM - Civilians, Police and Doctors begin to arrive at the Forward Operating Base in droves, to seek shelter and protection.

 

Day 2: 5PM - An injured civilian dies from his injuries at the Forward Operating Base and quickly turns into an infected, a small outbreak occurs at the base, and the national guard proceed to quarantine any remaining civilians and kill any injured civilians to prevent any further outbreaks occurring in the base itself.

 

Day 2: 8PM - A huge horde of infected descend on the Forward Operating Base and a huge fire fight breaks out... The national guard, police and a large number of armed civilians proceed to defend the base from the incoming horde.

 

Day 2: 9PM - The base is still somewhat operational and the gun fight continues, multiple reports of the assault is reported over the radio which is picked up by the incoming military and police forces.

 

Day 2: 11PM - The infected have taken over much of the base and only small pockets of resistance remain, a final radio message is broadcast stating that the base has been over run, the military and police forces that are incoming are only a matter of hours away and decide to quarantine the entire town and set up roadblocks around the entire town preventing anyone from entering or leaving.

 

Day 3: 8AM - Roadblocks have been set up around the entire town and your story of survival begins.

 

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