In The Walking Dead, if a living person bites another living person, do they become infected and turn?
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1scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11326/… may be useful.– FuzzyBootsCommented Oct 4, 2021 at 17:08
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I got bitten by a person under a full moon and now every full moon I turn into a were-person: half human, the other half.. also human.– JK.Commented Mar 14 at 21:08
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2 Answers
Fundamentally, The Walking Dead zombies are the risen bodies of the recently dead, whether or not they've been bitten.
There's no way back for someone after being bitten in The Walking Dead, that is unless the wound is on a body part that can be promptly cut off, and the time between being attacked and coming back varies hugely from person to person. Naturally, Robert Kirkman has been asked about the mechanics of his zombie virus on numerous occasions, and The Walking Dead's creator has consistently stressed that it is not the virus that kills. When a character is bitten, what leads to death is the generic (albeit severe) infection and fever that comes from being wounded by the mouth of a corpse. The injury kills a person in the way that any grievously infested wound can, but only after death has already occurred does the latent virus come into play and resurrect the victim as a mindless flesh-eater.
So, a bit from a living person will not "infect" the person any further than they already are, and you're just facing the potential deadliness of a human bite, which is lower than you might think. While human bites do have a high rate of infections (moreso than most animals since as humans, we carry pathogens that can breed in humans), they are seldom deadly, although this might be different in a post-apocalyptic world where medical treatment is scarce, and antibiotics may be harder to source.
I will add a caveat that, while the producers have used the "Komodo dragon" setup that zombie bites kill simply because they're carrying so many pathogens, the survivors never seem to stress much about, say, rubbing zombie goo on themselves despite that any open scratches should allow those deadly pathogens to enter the bloodstream.
answered Oct 4, 2021 at 16:47
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1Komodo Dragons kill their prey through venom and blood loss, not mouth borne pathogens (though their prey, if it escapes wounded, may also die from pathogens found in their environment). See discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/…– LaurelCommented Oct 4, 2021 at 21:05
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2@Laurel: I've heard that. I've also seen scientists pushing back and saying that the discovery of the venom sacs is leading to people going too far the other way, "everything you know is wrong!". In humans, yes, the deaths definitely are due to a combination of the venom and blood loss (largely because, if humans survive the initial encounter, they tend to get antibiotic treatment). Other animals, it's a combination of factors including those pathogens. Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 21:11
No, in the universe of The Walking Dead, being bitten by another living person does not result in infection or transformation into a zombie. This is clearly demonstrated in issue 101 of the comic series, where Sophia bites Carl’s forearm to stop him from pointing his gun at Maggie. Despite the bite, Carl does not exhibit any signs of infection following the incident.
answered Mar 14 at 14:30
