Zombie Virus Movies That Helped Me Wrap My Head Around the COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s a lot of distance between them and the zombie that’s trying to eat their face. I wonder if we drew the adorable little coronavirus image as a zombie whether people would take this social distancing thing a little more seriously.

You don’t need a megafort to protect yourself from the coronavirus. You just need your home, and to stay sheltered in it as much as possible given your circumstances, and to practice social distancing, handwashing, and mask wearing when you do leave. At this point we need to commit to doing anything we can to keep infected people alive while preventing transmission to anyone new.

That means taking stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines seriously and following them rigorously. Just like in a lot of zombie movies, we’re not just trying to protect ourselves from becoming infected, we’re trying to protect our friends, neighbors, loved ones, and communities.

6. The people with the most bravado are the ones who are likely to make this all a lot worse

There’s always one person in these zombie movies who thinks they’re invincible and makes everyone else’s lives way harder as a result.

We know this guy. The friend you try to talk into doing the bare minimum, like washing their hands, wearing a mask, or not licking hospital doorknobs in New York City. They believe their immune system is strong because they take vitamins and drink expensive juice and buttered coffee. They’re not scared of a little virus. They’re going to have the asymptomatic case and then they’ll be fine. They even lift, bro.

Even if you’re convinced that you’ll have a case that you’ll recover from, I assure you that death is not the only negative outcome from this. It’s too early to know the long-term effects of COVID-19, but experts worry that even after recovery, patients could experience symptoms including “lung scarring, heart damage, and neurological and mental health effects.” Data is preliminary, but in some studies, over half of asymptomatic patients are shown to have abnormal lung CT scans.

There are people who are young and apparently healthy getting and dying from COVID-19. Yes, some people with serious or deadly cases have underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of having a more severe case. But this virus spares no group of people entirely.

This is a potentially deadly virus for anyone who contracts it. Even if you’re in a group with a low risk, you live in a society, and that comes with some responsibilities. You want to go to the grocery store without a mask because you feel fine? You might be on day six of incubating COVID-19. The elderly, people who are immunosuppressed, and people with lung issues need to shop at that grocery store too. They didn’t sign up for your unmasked rant about freedom, Chet.

Maybe just don’t be a dick and wear a mask and wash your hands, huh?

7. You will probably not be “the hero,” but you can do your part.

When we watch these movies, we have the hero’s-eye view. We can see what they see, we’re in the know, and we’re in on the fact that this zombie apocalypse is happening and the danger is real. The zombies are visible, tangible in their universe. And we know that if there’s even one zombie and one human left, the infection can still spread. If you’re alive in the zombie apocalypse, you’re one of the scrappy band of heroes keeping humanity alive. \

We were expecting The Walking Dead, but somehow the apocalypse feels much more like A Quiet Place. This isn’t a postapocalyptic wasteland. This is many of us with the privilege of staying at home and catching up on absurd reality TV and figuring out where you can order bulk flour from. The way to be a hero in this story, for most of us, is to stay at home and keep you and your family safe.

In real life, without zombies banging on our door, we have to wade through the media and figure out what’s real. We may all be the heroes in our own story, but it’s in the nature of science that we have to rely on the right expert with the right data, and we can’t fake it or do it on our own. A comforting lie on YouTube may tell us exactly what we want to hear, but at the end of the day, an awful truth will persist.

You have a role to play, but your role is probably not to go out and fight the monsters. Unless you’re a front line worker, the best way you can help end the zombie—sorry, I mean the coronavirus—pandemic, is to follow CDC recommendations for best practices regarding wearing masks, handwashing, social distancing, and staying the eff home.

And maybe stop watching Contagion.