New scientific survey finds Perth most vulnerable to zombies

People are so apathetic to zombies these days. “Oh they’re so overdone, I don’t like them”. Well you know what, zombies like you and your soft supple brain, so maybe you should care. For the people that do still want to hang onto their grey matter, a survey has been released on Australia’s survivability to a zombie outbreak. Finally, someone doing some scientific research!

The consumer research done by University of Melbourne’s Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety (CDMPS) looked at how the spread of zombie disease may pan out in various Australian cities. This is all to promote the zombie survival game, State of Decay 2.

The model assigns major cities across Australia and New Zealand a “Zombie Survival Index” (ZSI). The ZSI rankings indicate how well the city would be able to hold off the undead. To calculate the rankings, the CDMPS looked at a variety of criteria including possible infection rates, transmission methods, how residents said they would act, defences against the hordes and geographical location.

The results are clear, Perth and Auckland would be the most likely to fall in their respective countries. Sydney and Melbourne surprisingly enough, despite being the most populous cities surveyed, were in the middle of the pack. Whereas Darwin and Queenstown, both being fairly isolated, faired the best.

Unfortunately, best chance of survival is not the same thing as survival.  Half of people said the biggest concern would be food and water. As for strategies, 17% would attempt to disguise themselves as a zombie to avoid getting bit.

It’s worth saying that working together might be the best chance, Melbournians being the most likely to do so. 50% of Darwinians said they’d be willing to open doors for a stranger. Hobart-dwellers stick to their families, but some members might not stick around with 45 year olds + being 19% more likely to go lone wolf.

Sadly, participants didn’t think civility would be intact in such an apocalypse. In fact, only 18% of Aussies believed society could withstand such a plague. Clearly the undead would bring the worst out of us, after all most respondents said they would rather sacrifice a neighbour to the horde rather than their pet.

But what is the best strategy? Well according to Professor Greg Foliente of the CDMPS, it’s all about crowd control:

“Our best chance of survival would be to contain an outbreak early by overpowering and removing zombies from the streets while they were still few in numbers. We would have the best chance of survival if the outbreak began in Darwin, with its isolated location restricting its ability to travel easily, coupled with 50 per cent of residents claiming they would take arms to defend themselves against the walking dead – the highest in the country”.

Whatever the circumstances, training is important. State of Decay 2 offers a chance for players and communities to test their skills in a variety of challenges – managing rations, group relationships and base defences. State of Decay 2 is now available.