On vaccine and zombie myth

Film director and screenwriter George A. Romero started the zombie genre in Hollywood. It all started with his debut film “Night of the Living Dead” series in 1968 about the zombie apocalypse.

The zombie apocalypse is a kind of fiction in which civilization collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. The reason the dead rise and attack are unknown but to some versions, it is a laboratory experiment accident.

In May 2011 United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted on its blog an article, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse”. CDC uses a zombie apocalypse to raise public awareness of emergency preparedness. Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan wrote, Comparing the hurricane season and possible pandemics to “flesh-eating zombies” from the horror film “Day of the Dead”. Khan recommends to Americans to prepare for natural disasters.

But many wonder why zombie apocalypse and zombie preparedness scenarios continue years later on the CDC website even if the agency admitted it was only a joke as part of its preparedness campaign program.

French astrologer and physician Nostradamus made an ominous prediction 500 years ago about the year 2021. In 1555, he published a book called “Centuries” which was comprised of rhymed quatrains grouped in hundreds. One of Nostradamus’ predictions for the year 2021 was this:

“Few young people: half-dead to give a start. Dead through spite, he will cause the others to shine, and in an exalted place some great evils to occur: Sad concepts will come to harm each one. Temporal dignified, the Mass to succeed. Fathers and mothers dead of infinite sorrow, Women in mourning, the pestilent she-monster: The Great One to be no more, all the world to end.”

Many are interpreting the “half-dead” remark to mean zombies and “all world to end” as “apocalypse” So that’s why there is always a talk about the “zombie apocalypse” in the year 2021.

On December 27, 2020, a screenshot with the logo of the CNN news channel reporting that COVID-19 vaccination is turning people into ‘man eating’ zombies was going viral on social media platforms. It showed an image of a hospital room with blood spilled all over the floor with the caption, ‘Breaking News: Hospital On Lockdown as First Covid Vaccine Patient Starts Eating Other Patient’ written on it.

The image and the claim-made screenshot are both fakes. It was an attempt to create panic amid the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. According to the report, the picture used in the screenshot was old and related to the treatment of gunshots victims in North Philadelphia, USA.

We are living in critical times. People are getting too sensitive. So one must be extra careful what to believe in print and social media. Not all articles published and posted are newsworthy because others are fake news. It is our civic responsibility to double-check the facts and the source before sharing it with the public.