On March 25, 2020, Aotearoa New Zealand declared a nationwide state of national emergency and moved to Alert Level 4 in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. I remember how surreal it was – like something out of a low-budget movie. It affected everyone. If you’d told anyone before it happened that it would happen, I don’t think they’d believe you. But it did, and I haven’t moved on from that awful feeling that something like COVID could always be right around the corner.
Dr Peter Grace (a Teaching Fellow at the University of Otago with a special interest in international security) discussed with me that right after 9/11, one of the big initiatives was for intelligence agencies to reach out to Hollywood writers and novelists to try and envision what could happen next. The chances of someone getting in a jumbo plane and flying into the World Trade Centre were so out of the question that no intelligence agency could have pondered it. This forced intelligence agencies to confront an uncomfortable reality: there were unknown unknowns that may pose a threat to national security. Actual intelligence experts needed to rely on the most far-out scenarios laid out for them by people whose job was to imagine the destruction of our society.
Conservative estimates reveal that more than one third of zombie movies were released after 9/11. Some international relations scholars have theorised that a social interest in zombies is actually an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on unknown unknowns in international security. As one member in one of the many zombie-apocalypse-prep Facebook groups I joined put it, “Zombie-prep is a metaphor for civil unrest, bio-warfare, natural emergency, and all things that can go wrong. Zombie-prep is Murphy’s Law.” While the threat of a zombie apocalypse may be an emergency “Black-Swan” event, it works as a vehicle to discuss broader institutional and social responses to states of unprecedented emergency.
I can’t say that the New Zealand Government has asked me to write this feature to prepare for the inevitable, but here I am. If I can’t shake the feeling that something may be right around the corner, I’ll try to prepare for it. This is what would happen in (and how to survive) a zombie apocalypse in Ōtepoti Dunedin.
Stage 1: Outbreak
My first stop was to investigate what a zombie virus might hypothetically look like. Luckily for me, the University of Otago is the only University in Aotearoa to offer a 300-level paper fully dedicated to in-depth learning about viruses and their interactions with their host – colloquially known as the study of virology. I emailed Associate Professor Mihnea Bostina, the course coordinator and a real-life virologist. He told me that his lab (the Bostina Lab) met the following day, and I should go along and talk to them about my latest maladaptive daydream – which they reassured me was, in fact, an unrealistic nightmare. But they entertained me anyway
As a Law and Commerce student, I’ve only ever wandered to the science side of campus for 100-level business papers, so I felt like a fish out of water. The lab group (nine post-grad students belonging to the Bostina Lab) welcomed me into where they were meeting: a maximally decorated office.
The Bostina Lab informed me that the University of Otago boasts specialised research facilities designed to safely handle microorganisms that pose a moderate to high risk of infection, known as physical containment (PC) labs. PC labs are ranked on a scale of 1-4, with a PC4 lab being the highest form of containment. These labs are crucial for research into infectious diseases, enabling scientists to study pathogens without endangering themselves or the surrounding environment. They incorporate multiple layers of physical and operational safeguards to prevent the escape of these microorganisms. The filters to the vents in that room are so fine that they could get clogged with individual cells. There’s only a handful of PC3 labs in Aotearoa – we don’t even have a PC4 in the country, which is used to handle real nasties such as ebola. Otago University has a PC3 lab used to handle diseases like tuberculosis, which kills about 1.3 million people per year. Otago University investigates drug-resistant TB so as to better understand how it becomes resistant to treatments, and then how to overcome these resistances by trialing new treatments.
Me: What do you think would happen [to cause a zombie outbreak]?
Bostina Lab: [A disease] could come out of a PC3 lab.
While diseases could hypothetically ‘escape’ a PC3 lab (most likely through somebody getting infected), the safety measures in place make this near impossible. The University told me that the PC3 lab operates under “strict national and international biosafety standards, designed to prevent any accidental release of pathogens.” You have to wear a hazmat suit and breathe HEPA-filtered air through a tube if you enter the PC3 – not the sexiest outfit. You also have to sign in and sign out – and that’s if you even get permission to enter. While you’re in the lab, someone from within the University is visually supervising you through cameras to ensure your safety (like making sure you don’t faint on the job) or make sure you aren’t doing something that is dangerous or risky. Those supervising over cameras can speak and communicate with you while you're in there. You also have to take a full body shower when you leave, plus get regular disease testing. The Bostina Lab told me if a zombie outbreak were to occur in Dunedin, it could more realistically be from a fresher catching it from a bioterrorist leak from a PC4 lab overseas. In this increasingly hypothetical and fictitious scenario the more I learned (thankfully), someone infected with a gnarly (possibly zombie) virus could pass it on to someone in their hall – the ultimate petri dish. However, PC3 labs don’t hold viruses that are of high individual and community risk (for example, tuberculosis poses a higher risk to researchers than the community, as it doesn’t spread very easily – usually through long exposure). So the chances of a ‘zombie virus’ being at the PC3 lab at all in the first place are nil.
Me: What sort of pathogen would cause zombies?
Bostina Lab: I’d say the most likely virus would be something that causes neuro-inflammation, and causes inflammation in the brain that changes behaviour – making you aggressive. You see that with rabies.
A virus like this could be stable in body fluids and start out with symptoms akin to the common cold, meaning you still feel good enough to go out and share drinks and vapes with friends, spreading the virus extremely effectively. Diseases such as rabies and Lyme disease cause aversion to water and meat, respectively, and it may be possible for a virus to reverse those aversions into a strong craving for flesh. Or, it could cause your body to no longer be able to absorb iron and make you extremely hungry, driving you to seek out any meat you can find – and there’s not a lot of animals in urban Dunedin. And if it’s stable in bodily fluids, it can be transferred by bite or airborne droplets. If you breathe a neuro-inflammatory disease in, that’s quick access to your brain through the nasal passages, speeding up a breakdown in logic and character. Not good.
Me: Once fully infected, is there a way to reverse such a disease?
The short answer is maybe, but using my creative liberty for this apocalyptic event, I would suggest no. If the zombie virus was neuroinflammatory, then chances are it would damage critical structures in your brain that, even if the virus is cured, would leave you neurologically damaged. Some viruses (retroviruses) integrate with DNA and can exist indefinitely in the body, so there’s potentially no ‘getting better’ naturally either. “You’re either not going to be able to heal or recover from it, or your quality of life is so low that… You know”, one lab member put it. Other symptoms you experience when you’re sick (such as an ongoing fever) can spoil important proteins and cause seizures. Best case scenario, you’re naturally immune (there’s always a number of those ‘lucky’ people in any population), and get to watch all your flatmates slowly get infected.
Me: How do you think you could avoid catching something like this?
Bostina Lab: Retreat. Don’t see anyone. If people are attacking and biting you, you need to be away from people.
With those harrowing words, I left the Bostina Lab. Ultimately, our conversation had highlighted something that emphasised my fear: unlike vampires, witches, or ghosts, zombies do not necessarily require a supernatural act – maybe just rabies gone rogue. A poll of professional philosophers once showed that more than 58% of philosophers believed that zombies could exist on some level. Conversely, fewer than 15% of those same respondents believed in God.
That’s a bit like me now. I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in zombies.
Stage 2: Emergency Responses
Say the outbreak has hit. While students would begin panicking, several institutional mechanisms would begin to click into place. I’ll talk about those mechanisms soon – but let’s quickly consider where you could hide.
The first institutions I approached were the University of Otago and the Dunedin City Council. The University didn’t entertain me that much. Acting Chief Operating Officer Jared Hayes told me that the University has an Emergency Management Plan, which outlines how it would navigate events that are disruptive to the normal operation of the University.
The Plan includes ‘human disease pandemic’, and the University’s Emergency Management Policy also includes an Infectious Diseases Emergency Planning Group – a broad cross-functional group of University staff and representatives from external agencies responsible for planning and advising on the University’s response to epidemics, pandemics, and infectious disease outbreaks. “It should be noted the intention behind the inclusion of these is to cover pandemics such as Covid-19 and seasonal influenza,” Jared says. Basically, the University is concerningly underprepared, despite potentially being ground zero for such an outbreak.
The DCC had much better arrangements, with a spokesperson confirming that they have “all the raw ingredients” necessary for a “well-defended crafting base on the roof of the Civic Centre”, stocked with wood, cobblestone, fibre, iron ingots, and coal (what in the Minecraft?). “Beyond that, a zombie apocalypse would most likely fall under the definition of a pandemic, and our response would be led by our Civil Defence experts at Emergency Management Otago,” they told me. Emergency Management Otago also said that planning for any contagion is the responsibility of Health New Zealand, and any Civil Defence planning will be dictated by their approach. Total run around.
After some Googling, explanations from Otago University’s Peter Grace, and reading an excellent article by Victoria University’s Jim Rolfe, I found out that as soon as the threat of any national security risk gets out, a Watch Group is formed. Watch Groups are a “tool to obtain situational clarity” in chaotic emergency situations, according to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Who is within a Watch Group depends on the nature of the event, but Watch Groups are created to ensure high-level coordination between agencies and advise the Prime Minister and Cabinet on what emergency response should be. These groups kind of act like a national security ‘filter’, deliberating on whether issues should be escalated or referred back to agencies (such as the Police) to deal with. For example, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis was discussed by a Watch Group, but referred to the Reserve Bank to deal with, as it was within their jurisdiction.
Once a Watch Group identifies an issue of national security, they will ask if this is a single agency issue or requires close central coordination. Given the magnitude of threat a zombie apocalypse entails, the matter will likely be referred to the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC). ODESC is the committee with all the power for security coordination: formed from the Security Intelligence Service, Government Communications Security Bureau, and the National Emergency Management Agency, as well as any other agency who should be involved with an emergency. It’s like our version of the FBI and CIA. They come up with an emergency response and refer it to Cabinet (basically the brain of our Government, if you aren’t familiar with political lingo).
“What’s interesting about ODESC, in the zombie setting, is that they have a devil’s advocate. That’s to overcome groupthink. They also have cognitive profiles on all members [of ODESC] – that’s to overcome cognitive biases like confirmation bias [...]”, Peter tells me. Basically, it means that ODESC is socially engineered to deal with critical situations like a zombie apocalypse. If Peter was on ODESC in this situation, he’d freak out. The only zombie movie he’s ever watched was Shaun of the Dead, and he couldn’t stop shaking for hours after. If I was there, I would probably think of the worst case scenario and try to block all roads in and out of Dunedin, essentially putting a dome over the city à la Stephen King. However, ODESC is a carefully considered environment, and challenges those lines of thinking to come up with the most robust response possible for our nation. “I think, for instance, you’re gonna have a credibility problem with zombies. If one of the committee members started to go grey and make groaning noises, that credibility crisis would be overcome quickly. So there’s going to be a testing period to see if this [threat] is real, like we saw with the [COVID-19] pandemic.”
Given the zombie outbreak would be localised in Dunedin, this point is especially salient. No matter how intelligent you are, humans have an innate inability to rationalise with what they do not know. There would be a period of “what the fuck” within ODESC, as images and videos flood social media and news outlets of students and staff infected with some mystery virus that drives them to inexplicably hunt for human flesh with more passion than I hunt for a Powerade on a Sunday morning. For example, Peter assumed that a zombie apocalypse would stem from the traditional literature idea of an outbreak, which happens where there is an overcrowding of Hell, causing souls to be stuck in undead bodies on the living plane. Conversely, I jumped to the assumption it would be caused by a virus. These are the sorts of debates ODESC would have in this “what the fuck” period. This is also a period where we might begin to have civil unrest, as other citizens within the nation begin to question if what they’re seeing is real – potentially exacerbated by increasingly realistic AI depictions of catastrophic events. In other words, it’s an environment for conspiracy theories to develop.
ODESC would inevitably have a brief power struggle given the uncertainty of the situation. With our proximity in time to the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps the most natural response would be to treat the outbreak like a pandemic. One option would be to appoint the Ministry of Health as the lead agency within ODESC, but this seems wrong to Peter in the context of zombies – I dunno if even Ashley Bloomfield could calm me down in the face of the undead. “I think that’s the sort of conversation they’d be having,” Peter suggests. The Police is another option for a lead agency, who would treat the outbreak as a law and order problem. “You’ve got two law and order problems. One is that zombies are violent, and so the Police will be trying to stop violence as opposed to spread – not to say that the [Ministry of Health] won’t be doing their job as well. Secondly, you’ll have looting going on as people try to build their defence.”
If it’s not a law and order problem, then maybe it’s an invasion problem. But not an external invasion; rather, internal. In a way, a zombie outbreak is akin to a civil war, in which citizens are becoming zombies and fighting against citizens who are not yet zombies. This is a military issue, potentially leaving the Ministry of Defence to lead the response. But the military is not necessarily immune to infection, creating a fifth column issue – in which a group within a conflict-ridden nation undermines that nation in favour of the enemy. Here, the military may be undermining the emergency response through becoming undead while still in military kit. Now you have the Ministry of Health, Police, and Defence all battling over who is correct to take control in this situation. Peter even suggested (“tongue in cheek”) that Births, Deaths and Marriages (they register Births, Deaths and Marriages) may get involved due to the amount of citizens dying but being walking dead – “you’re now chasing your tail trying to register the [un]dead”. Nonetheless, it demonstrates how the whole Government would be affected by an outbreak.
At this point, Peter would expect a co-opting of experts, such as virologists. “You’d also turn to people who know a lot about zombies”, Peter explained, which could be drawn from those who are familiar with zombie literature (including the contributors to r/ZombieSurvivalTactics). In other words, once this feature is published, I would probably be top on the list for who ODESC would call – which is great because journalism pays fuck all these days. Consolidating all of this, ODESC would advise Cabinet, who may adopt recommendations as they see fit.
From the research I have done, the natural sciences have already considered the zombie problem (as was clear from my trip to the Bostina Lab). Another example was a study done by physicist Thomas Wooley, who explored the best place to hide from the “random walk” pattern of zombie-like bodies using the diffusion equation. If, for example, the initial zombie outbreak is 90 meters away and they have a diffusion rate of 100m2/min, then they’ll catch up with you in around 26 minutes. This also illustrates why you should never stay and try to fight zombies – it is always better to run. Getting double the distance between yourself and zombies approximately quadruples. When the zombies do catch up, hopefully you’ve fortified your base with enough obstructions that a human could navigate, but a decaying, unathletic, and brain-dead zombie would struggle with. Physics! Mathematicians have also modeled the theoretical spread of zombies (they gave the world 100 days). Forensic anthropologists have considered how long zombies can persist while their body decomposes. It appears I am not the first person to ponder any of this.
Stage 3: Local Social Response and Recovery
Recovery would begin as soon as a response has been decided and recommended to Cabinet. Peter suggested to me that, if we proceed with the Bostina Lab’s definition of zombies, you could "wait out" the outbreak until the zombies died and the problem was over. They’re still technically mortal, and if we’re going off what forensic anthropologists theorise, then they'd only have a limited amount of time before they start decomposing on their feet. Granted, the colder climate of Dunedin may sustain how long they last compared to more humid environments. “Therefore, you could try to contain them to one island, because they couldn't take the Cook Strait ferry over to the other,” Peter suggests. However, if a “real” zombie apocalypse occurs (one where the zombies aren’t technically mortal, and instead regurgitated back up from Hell), time would not be on our side – at some point we would make contact with the zombies again, furthering spread. Let’s just hope the Bostina Lab was on to something.
In the UK 2010 election, the Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality (CURE) party was founded by 26-year-old Harry Cole. He and his friends didn’t literally want to create a party demanding equality for the living dead, but rather use the party as a vehicle to express their discomfort toward, and alienation from, mainstream parties, setting out to mock politicians and the voters who were prepared to back them as zombies. Politicians “represent a very small, elite group of people, not the general public,” Cole told Time Magazine. CURE managed to get 317 votes.
Despite Cole perhaps not meaning CURE or his sentiment to have a direct application to a zombie outbreak, he demonstrates an important point: zombie outbreaks are illustrative of social division. An example is what we saw when the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced: affluent people fled from major cities to their holiday homes. Those most affected by an outbreak will live in densely populated areas, unable to escape to holiday homes, much like we saw during COVID. For the majority of the public, those who have become zombies will inevitably be our friends, flatmates, and family. Sympathising with the undead will be likely. As recovery efforts continue, formation of other activist groups is bound to happen – Undead Aotearoa, ZPeace, or charters pushing for the recognition of the Rights of the Undead. Daniel Drezner, an author I have referenced several times throughout this feature, discusses that the likelihood of a ZombieLeaks entity publishing sensitive and classified information about the counterzombie regime seems strong, undermining any Government response to the outbreak.
Here at ground zero, Peter thinks we’d have preferential treatment for those who have guns and survival skills, whereas those bound to rest homes and hospitals are left to pray. Guess it's time to join the Hunting Club to prepare. Searching ‘abandoned’ within r/Dunedin reveals that there are some in our midst that are into urban exploring: the hobby of exploring abandoned or otherwise inaccessible, often human-made structures, that are not typically open to the public. Beneath our feet stretch old tunnels, many sewers but some built in response to the threat of WW2. The photos I’ve seen of them look creepy as fuck, with one explorer describing navigating them as “back-breaking level on the pain-o-meter”, given their “stoopiness”. However, you could potentially envision some little freshers using these tunnels to navigate into and away from central Dunedin, as some of these old sewer lines lead into the hills that surround central Dunedin. The DCC told me that there were also a number of privately-owned tunnels and bunkers scattered around the city, which could be a helpful advantage for some lucky owners. The University further confirmed that there are three WW2-era bomb shelters under the Geology and Archway West buildings, so students could make good use of those as well.
Those who have cars are also likely to be at an advantage, being able to escape to other areas – so long as the Government’s response hasn’t meant sectioning off Dunedin to die. While these days dismissed as largely a myth, the general manager of Rising S (a company that sells private doomsday-esque bunkers ranging from USD $40k into the millions) Gary Lynch claimed Rising sold heaps of bunkers to NZ. They’re “all over the place”, Lynch gleefully told CNN in 2020. Another American company, Vivos, claimed that it built a 300-person bunker in NZ, but when the founder was asked for details, he refused to say any more – or even confirm its existence. Perhaps if you had a car, student ingenuity and some mates endowed with “connections” (nepotism funded by generational wealth), you could find these bunkers. Food for thought. Maybe Forsyth Barr is converted into a makeshift hospital, or the Meridian Mall as a stronghold.
Peter thinks there would be a further question about whether democracy would be the first casualty, or whether you end up with total anarchy and tribalism, where only the strong survive. Maybe if preferentialism does prevail and the Government becomes uninterested in the dire fate of the South Island, anarchism would become our Southern heartland. Maybe there would no longer be any order, and grand institutions like our University that once housed talented professors and students alike would fall to the insistence of time’s ever-marching arrow.
But who really knows? I’m just a writer for Critic.
Massive thanks to the following friends, scholars, authors, and platforms for making my daydream come to life and entertaining me:
- Peter Grace
- Mihnea Bostina
- The 2025 Bostina Lab
- Grace Verryt
- Molly Smith-Soppet (for editing this to make it funny)
- Daniel Drezner (author of Theories of International Politics and Zombies: Apocalypse Edition)
- Philip C. Hill (author of The New Zealand Public Health Response to COVID-19 and International Implications for Managing Future Pandemic Threats)
- Jim Rolfe (author of Prudence, Principle and Pragmatism - New Zealand's Security in the 21st Century)
- r/ZombieSurvivalTactics
- Zombie Apocalypse Survivors Network (Facebook)