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Disinfection Techniques


Houski

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I know the developers have said a resounding "NO" to a zombie cure, but I want to know what the stance on using Cauterization, Bleach, and Alcohol as a disinfectant immediately upon a scratch or bite condition.

 

Here is how I would think this could be used:

 

  1. Bite/Scratch Condition.  This imparts a 96% & 25% chance of contracting zombification, respectively. You can presently do nothing to impede or manage this.
  2. Apply Alcohol/Bleach. Before applying a bandage, which is a precondition to preventing Bleeding damage, you apply Alcohol or Bleach. This imparts a 25% chance per application* of eliminating a hidden infection condition. The downside is that this imparts a severe pain condition - immediately to agony. It could also impart a panic condition. You still have no idea if your treatment has been effective. You have 30 seconds to apply the alcohol to a wound before the "disinfectant window" closes.
  3. Cuterize Wound. This idea is a bit more complicated and requires item coding, but is like a localized amuptation in terms of infections. You would take a special object like a Heated Knife (or maybe just use a lighter?) You could put a knife in the oven, turn the oven on, heat it up until it is a "heated knife" and then you have the option of "cauterizing wounds". Again, pain level is moved immediately to agony and a panic condition is imparted for a long period but there is a 25% chance of eliminating a hidden infection. You would have 2 minutes to apply the cauterization just because of the prep-time.
  4. Apply Bandage. Bandages still work as normal.

*This means you could use multiple doses, pouring more than one application of alcohol/bleach onto a wound for a 25% chance each time.

 

 

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None of the tricks you listed above would do anything to real life infections from wounds, particularly for penetrating wounds such as bites, since the contaminated matter stays deeper within the wound and is in contact with circulation, no matter how much alcohol or bleach you pour on top of the wound. Same with cauterization, it just helps stop bleeding. The wound itself is likely to get even worse from it, healing and infection risk-wise.

i wonder ow many people would willingly press a glowing heated object on a bleeding wound, but nonetheless:

 

+1 from me

If the alternative is certain death?

 

Anyway, as far as I can recall, the devs have said no to this stuff. However they've also said that it'd be nice if players could try doing things like these, including amputating limbs, even if it is completely ineffective and would lead to faster death because of the operation itself. Just for the story potential.

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humans would probably do even nastier stuff if it prolongs their lives. 

the will to live is strong.. 

although a lot of people would also just take a bullet to the head if the dead start to rise...

if only a pistol was available... 

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None of the tricks you listed above would do anything to real life infections from wounds, particularly for penetrating wounds such as bites, since the contaminated matter stays deeper within the wound and is in contact with circulation, no matter how much alcohol or bleach you pour on top of the wound. Same with cauterization, it just helps stop bleeding. The wound itself is likely to get even worse from it, healing and infection risk-wise.

 

While I agree that the likelihood may be small that disinfecting agents would do much good, especially in the case of a bite where infection could pass directly into the circulatory system, what we're talking about is the potential of a systemic infection. How does a normal infection become life-threatening? It's about duration of exposure. 

 

If you get bit, the infection is localized at the point of contact up until the first pulse of heart-beat. For the sake of illustrative math, lets say that you get 100 germs (is it a virus, is it a bacteria, a parasite?), each heartbeat allows one (1) germ to move deeper into the circulatory system. Until the infection colonizes, the entire bacteriological/viral load is that 100 germs. So each heart-beat subtracts 1 from the load and moves it into the body. After fifty heart beats, you have 50 germs at the contact sight and 50 circulating. Obviously once it colonizes, it begins to breed and multiply, but that doesn't happen immediately. This is why time is important.

 

Now, if I could immediately apply a sterilizing agent - say alcohol - to the bite or scratch and reduce the load at the contact point from 100 down to 0, I would have no chance of circulating the virus/bacteria and thus no chance to contract the infection.

 

Since immediate application of disinfectant is functionally impossible, we give a game-based estimate of what it might look like if I applied some disinfecting agent at the wound site some amount of time after being bitten or scratched. If it reduces the overall viral/bacteriological load in my body by even some fraction, it is still a net positive. Even if 50 germs have entered my circulatory system, topical disinfection of the wound site removes the other 50 from potentially entering and colonizing; that gives my immune system a 50% greater chance of resisting infection.

 

Because what I'm suggesting is that any time you are bitten and resist, it isn't because there wasn't a virus/bacterium introduced into your system, but that your immune system fought it off. That fits with what the Resiliency trait implies: that one can be more resistant to the virus internally. 

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