'The Walking Dead- TV show ONLY! Only spoilers allowed are about PAST TV episodes!

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

I find the flu thing pretty believable. There's limited water, there's no medicine to control the symptoms, and the accomodations - jail cells - aren't conducive to recovery. The mortality rate seems like it's a bit high but who knows, maybe being infected with zombie sickness affects the body's ability to combat other viruses.

Rick going nuts on Tyrese was well done. Legitimately a "holy F***" moment, very convincing.

The girls are a reasonable culprit for who killed what's her name and what's his face. Just a thought, how about Carl? Maybe he's just been playing nice and mature to get his weapon back and he's really just as ruthless as he seemed to be becoming at the end of S3.

What medication is there for the flu? It's just rest and recovery. I assume everyone born before the zombie outbreak would have been vaccinated. I guess the coughing up of blood could be caused by a bad case of bronchitis but even that wouldn't lead to blood unless there was also a viral infection. Not trying to be overly critical but to see all these people coughing up blood seems a little far fetched but I guess the whole zombie thing is far fetched in the first place ha ha.

[Flash Walken]

Erick Estrada, MD.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

What medication is there for the flu? It's just rest and recovery. I assume everyone born before the zombie outbreak would have been vaccinated. I guess the coughing up of blood could be caused by a bad case of bronchitis but even that wouldn't lead to blood unless there was also a viral infection. Not trying to be overly critical but to see all these people coughing up blood seems a little far fetched but I guess the whole zombie thing is far fetched in the first place ha ha.

My guess is these guys just aren't anywhere near 100% like we are in day-to-day life. They don't eat well, they don't sleep well, probably already dehydrated and malnourished on a daily basis. It's third world life for them and even a simple flu isn't as simple anymore.

[Daradon]

Yeah a flu is much deadlier than people think. People die all the time from it. It's just that it we all get it from time to time so we don't realize how dangerous it can be in the right circumstances or to other people. In a world like this, it would be a real threat.

Though I do agree with EE (yikes?) on the fact that the whole spitting up of blood is a little overdone, or would indicate something unusual and a lot worse than a normal flu.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Though I do agree with EE (yikes?) on the fact that the whole spitting up of blood is a little overdone, or would indicate something unusual and a lot worse than a normal flu.

Nobody likes it but everyone does eventually.

[Hockeyguy15]

I could be wrong but I just assumed that the coughing up blood was from a pneumonia. Maybe I am wrong but I thought it was a common thing if someone had a pneumonia.

[RogerWilco]

Hershel said in the episode that people are dying not from the illness but the symptoms ie. infection. That is what the antibiotics would be for.

And did anyone on the show actually call this the flu? Or is that just us projecting? Don't remember hearing that but I could be wrong.

[Rubber Ducky]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I just find the show was so better with a villain like the Governor.

I find that this sickness/flu/cold/blood-puking-mess is kind of the villain thus far. An invisible villain that is making a mess of the prison. Causing heartache and murder within the prison walls.

I do agree with you though - I hope it doesn't turn into Season 2. As much as I love the show, that season at the farm really dragged on until the end.

[Rubber Ducky]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

How long have they been in the prison now? This is honestly the first episode that the Prison became a character, we really got to know different places and areas of it, finally.

I don't know that they've mentioned it yet, but it has to be at least 6 months after the end of Season 3. The population has swelled as they seem to be finding stragglers in the woods. And the garden is in full swing.

Too bad about the pigs though. No more bacon for you.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

I could be wrong but I just assumed that the coughing up blood was from a pneumonia. Maybe I am wrong but I thought it was a common thing if someone had a pneumonia.

With pneumonia your lungs can fill up with fluid/mucus, but not blood. I actually had pneumonia when I was five. Never heard of anyone coughing up blood from it.

I don't know what causes one to cough up blood. It's definitely something that happens in the movies and on TV more than real life. I know a tear in the throat will do it, but I'm not sure what types of illnesses would.

As for the show, I think flu just became the word here. But I would assume it's something like that. Course, bacteria borne illnesses can be healed with antibiotics, viral cannot be. They may never actually tell us for sure. It would be hard for the characters to know anyway.

[KOgear]

Maybe its the plauge, wasn't there some guy who put a rat through the fence to get bitten by zombies. Maybe after that he let the rat looose in the prison.

[Temporary_User]

Hasn't it already been established that the sickness is from the pigs?

Also a flu can be pretty tough, yes not coughing up blood tough. I think the word flu has become a common word for almost any kind of sickness recently. People now say they had a "24 hour flu bug" and things like that. The actual flu, influenza is a pretty rough sickness that puts you under for a few days with the sever sweats, pain, fatigue, etc.
Yes one doesn't typically cough up blood with the flu as much as they do on the show, but knowing that everyone is infected with the walkers disease even before they die I don't think it is too much of a Hollywood stretch to say any coughing or internal unrest can be significantly worse than it more typically would be.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Something like a super Ebola could be the cause:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease

All patients show some extent of coagulopathy and impaired circulatory system symptomology.[14] Bleeding from mucous membranes and puncture sites is reported in 40–50% of cases,[15] while maculopapular rashes are evident in approximately 50% of cases.[14] Sources of bleeds include hematemesis, hemoptysis, melena, and aforementioned bleeding from mucous membranes (gastroinestinal tract, nose, vagina and gingiva). Diffuse bleeding, however, is rare, and is usually exclusive to the gastrointestinal tract

All epidemics of Ebola have occurred in sub-optimal hospital conditions, where practices of basic hygiene and sanitation are often either luxuries or unknown to caretakers and where disposable needles and autoclaves are unavailable or too expensive. In modern hospitals with disposable needles and knowledge of basic hygiene and barrier nursing techniques, Ebola has never spread on a large scale. In isolated settings such as a quarantined hospital or a remote village, most victims are infected shortly after the first case of infection is present. The quick onset of symptoms from the time the disease becomes contagious in an individual makes it easy to identify sick individuals and limits an individual's ability to spread the disease by traveling. Because bodies of the deceased are still infectious, some doctors had to take measures to properly dispose of dead bodies in a safe manner despite local traditional burial rituals

Which seems to goes back to the burning of the corpses.

Ebola virus can be transmitted to dogs and pigs.[129] While dogs may be asymptomatic pigs tend to develop clinical disease.

It's kind of already been debunked to be an actual real world strain of Ebola because of the exact symptons and time periods (I suppose without factoring in everyone's infected with the zombie thing) but I think it's probably close enough to the generic disease the writers have created. I highly doubt they'll actually name the exact strain or anything like that, we know the symptoms, we may find out the cause, but I doubt they'll start vaccinating people for a real world disease and rather just have some generic antibiotics that seem to work alright.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

Hershel said in the episode that people are dying not from the illness but the symptoms ie. infection. That is what the antibiotics would be for.

While that isn't exactly true for real world Ebola, antibiotics can/should be taken to help fight secondary infections by those who have contacted it. So it's a bit of a real world parallel, although it's effectiveness is very limited in the real world.

And so far the mystery disease is batting 1000. With no apparent survivors of the disease yet and certain Ebola strains having 90% or more mortality rates I think it's likely going to end up as the closest real world disease but I suspect we're never going to get an actual named disease. This isn't Breaking Bad where the science checks out, I mean they got a mint self cleaning Hyundai Tucson several years into a Zombie apocalypse or the fact that a grocery store set up as some form of military base (as seen in the first episode of this season) would have shelves stocked full of everything, no one in the end of the world decided they could go for some alcohol?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

or the fact that a grocery store set up as some form of military base (as seen in the first episode of this season) would have shelves stocked full of everything, no one in the end of the world decided they could go for some alcohol?

They explained that. The army setup the fences when everything started, and the whole thing was filled with walkers. That's why they made an opening in the fence and setup a boom box a few blocks away running on car batteries.

So the store stock was intact because it had been guarded first by the army, and then by walkers.

[moon]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I just find the show was so better with a villain like the Governor.

I think if they do a much better job with the villian than they did with the governor it could work well, but the governor character was so awful and poorly handled that it ruined what could have been a very good storyline.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by ken0042

They explained that. The army setup the fences when everything started, and the whole thing was filled with walkers. That's why they made an opening in the fence and setup a boom box a few blocks away running on car batteries.

So the store stock was intact because it had been guarded first by the army, and then by walkers.

That doesn't really explain it. Even if we assume that the army got there prior to any sort of stocking up/looting occurred, which would be a big assumption, it was a military base/sanctuary for at least some time. Obviously the military would have protected the supplies, but at no point did they go in and actually use any? The place was more stocked than any grocery store or Walmart is if you were to walk into it now. I mean the shelving broke causing that whole episode 1 conflict because it was so full

Even if you're happy with that situation, we can nitpick the tons of other inaccuracies like no gun having any sort of recoil. 12 year old Carl and 100 pound girls shooting variously large guns without any sort of recoil? Okay.

[ken0042]

I think if you are going to pick it to that degree, how do you reconsile the whole zombie thing?

[Radio]

This flu is based on the Spanish Flu of 1918, Nicotero said as much on the Talking Dead. He didn't say Spanish flu explicitly, but said it was based on a flu in the early 1900s that, unlike most flus, killed young, in their prime people. The Spanish flu killed a lot of people and quickly. 500 million were infected and 50 to 100 million of them died.

This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms. Symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred." The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung

Spanish Flu Pandemic

[Ped]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

That doesn't really explain it. Even if we assume that the army got there prior to any sort of stocking up/looting occurred, which would be a big assumption, it was a military base/sanctuary for at least some time. Obviously the military would have protected the supplies, but at no point did they go in and actually use any? The place was more stocked than any grocery store or Walmart is if you were to walk into it now. I mean the shelving broke causing that whole episode 1 conflict because it was so full

Meh, assuming that no one really understood how the infection works (and how everyone has it), its very easy to believe that someone inside could have turned very quickly before the supplies could be used.