The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Dangerous by default

6) “Typhoid Marys”

The term “Typhoid Mary” is a reference to an Irish cook in New York at the turn of the century who, unbeknownst to her, was accidentally spreading typhoid because she wasn’t showing symptoms of the disease, and therefore, didn’t realize she was carrying it. It has since become a term referring to anyone who has a disease, doesn’t realize they have it, and inadvertently spread that disease to other people around them.

Now, you might wonder what this has to do with a zombie apocalypse, and to that I would respond: Do you think that simply because there is a zombie virus, that other diseases just…go away?

I can tell for a fact that they do not. Diseases like typhoid, dysentery, the flu, and a whole host of other dangerous microbes will still be floating around long after the first person turns into a zombie, and, this is important because it means they’ll be another set of things you need to be wary of.

Of course, with civilization gone in the apocalypse (And with it, electrical grids), a lot of the machines we use to diagnose many of those diseases won’t work, and so, we’ll largely be flying blind when it comes to these sorts of deadly diseases because, in far too many instances, people can spread them sometimes days before they start showing symptoms, assuming they ever do.

This is a difficult threat to tackle, because you rarely have any idea someone else might be sick with something until it’s too late, and even if you don’t intend to, you could still wind up meeting another person, who might just have a disease you’re not ready for.

The best thing I can tell you is to try to find out the symptoms of more common communicable diseases, and gather medicines that can help you fight them off, so that, should you catch them, you’ll be as prepared as you can be.