“World War Z” opens with interviews detailing the first few months at the start of a worldwide pandemic. Kwang Jingshu, a Chinese doctor, narrates his encounter with “Patient Zero,” a 12-year-old boy from a provincial Chinese village who had begun showing strange symptoms, shocking the doctor when he arrived. The boy had gone swimming in a dam and was bitten on the leg by an unknown creature. When Dr. Kwang called Dr. Gu, an old friend he had worked with at the Institute of Infectious Diseases, to tell him about his discovery, he was instructed to immediately report the case to the authorities. Shortly after, a military team arrived to quarantine the area, silencing any further inquiries and leaving Dr. Kwang deeply unsettled. This marked the first documented instance of the mysterious outbreak that would soon spiral out of control.
Reading Max Brook’s brilliant and chilling book, I could not help but relive the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in late September 2019 when it was still confined to a few provinces. The authorities cracked down so hard on journalists that accurate information became hard to find. Could the staggering loss have been prevented if the leaders had been more open?
The rising action begins as the Chinese government quickly responds to the alert sent by Kwang and officials in hazmat suits soon arrive, taking away the patient and those he had come in contact with. Dr. Kwang is also detained as the government quickly covers up the event and cracks down on those who spread information about the disease.
The Chinese government’s violent crackdown and cover-up of the event, coupled with spreading rumors began to spread panic, causing many people to flee China to other parts of the world, some carrying the disease with them. They also hide wounded family members in fear of the government aiding the spread of the infection. In other instances, like in the Sao Paulo outbreak, the disease spread via an infected illegally sourced heart that was transplanted to a healthy patient.
The story reached a turning point as the disease rapidly spread. This, coupled with the symptoms presented by the infected, caused great chaos among the leaders of the intelligence gathering agencies of the world. This was worsened by China’s lies and cover-ups, which impeded the understanding of the disease and the creation of countermeasures. No government wanted to be the first to admit to a superstitious belief in walking corpses, so when CIA agent Bob Archer insisted on discussing the possibility that the zombies were real, he was transferred to Brazil as punishment.
This reiterates to me the power of information. The story mirrors real life here as humanity’s ability to understand the disease is hampered by government protocol and disinformation.
However, the US government would soon admit that there was indeed a zombie problem but government officials knew that the public would not support a war effort to destroy zombies because they were tired of America constantly fighting wars. As panic began to spread, some people saw this as the perfect opportunity to cash in on the fear of the masses. A man named Breckinridge Scott and some others began marketing a fake vaccine made from a rabies vaccine as a cure and, making millions from them. Seeking to calm a scared and desperate populace, the American government played along with the scam.
As the book reaches its climax, the zombie problem becomes increasingly worse as large groups of zombies attack as many people as they can reach. Riots also broke out in cities across the world, further crippling law and order, and the delivery of essential services. Russia decimates its army in an ill-advised move to checkmate mutinies and desertions, and in an attempt to weed out infected people, Ukraine uses VX gas on civilians, killing many uninfected people. The US also suffered severe losses in the battle of Yonkers, where bombing raids failed to stop the zombies approaching their battle lines. The soldiers prove to be too afraid to function properly, and they were overrun, suffering massive casualties.
Iran and Pakistan, the fight over refugees crossing the borders led to both countries attacking each other with nuclear weapons, which, coupled with massive and uncontrolled fires raging in many regions of the world, causes a nuclear winter. Eventually the Redeker Plan, devised by a former South African apartheid official named Paul Redeker, was implemented. The Plan involved using unsuspecting civilians as bait to distract the zombies while safe zones were established, fortified, and stocked. The Redeker Plan proved immensely successful, solving the conflict of the story, and was soon adopted by other countries.
“World War Z” reaches its turning point after the UN conference in Honolulu, when the world leaders, led by the United States soon went on an offensive . The united armies re-invent their weapons and fighting techniques, increasing their efficiency. Soldiers were retrained to aim for the head instead of the torsos and were re-equipped with new types of body armor that protected them from bites and exchange of bodily fluids, and the use of volley firing was reinstated. By increments, the world eventually begins to record victories against the zombies as country after country rid themselves of the scourge.
This is a reminder of a fact humans often forget; humanity can only survive if everyone works together toward a common goal. I consider it one of the best parts of the story.
“World War Z” resolves as humanity achieves victory over the Zombies fifteen years after the Honolulu conference, but the world has irreparably changed. New countries and independent states had emerged, and some countries like Russia have become expansionists once again. Although severely damaged, the world economy was slowly recovering. Fossil fuels have also become scarce, and many animals have gone extinct due to overhunting by humans, predation by zombies, and pollution.
