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Published: October 28, 2025
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A Halloween Story for Public Health: What If the CDC Faced a Zombie Apocalypse Today?
Every October, we expect to be spooked by haunted houses, horror films, and the occasional zombie costume wandering our streets. But this year, the real fright isn’t fictional at all. It’s the unsettling question of whether the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is still capable of protecting Americans in a true public health emergency.
In 2011, the CDC used a clever approach to capture the public’s imagination: a graphic novel about a zombie apocalypse, designed to teach readiness for real-world disasters. In that story, the CDC functioned as a model of swift detection, coordination, communication, and scientific expertise.
Fast forward to today, and the picture looks very different.
In my newest Healthbeat article, I revisit the CDC’s original zombie preparedness tale—but rewrite the scenario for 2025. What would happen if the “Zombie Virus” emerged now, at a time when the CDC is under political attack, stripped of staff, silenced from communicating with the public, and increasingly unable to coordinate national responses to outbreaks?
The piece walks through each step of an emergency—from the first ER cases to lab testing, communication, vaccine development, and nationwide mobilization—and contrasts the CDC of 2011 with the weakened CDC of today. The conclusion is sobering: if a zombie outbreak occurred this Halloween, we might not be prepared to stop it.
The zombie metaphor makes the article seasonal and fun, but the threat to America’s public health system is real. I hope this piece will spark conversations about what is being lost—and what urgently needs to be rebuilt.
👉 Read the full article on Healthbeat:
A public health horror story: If the zombies arrive on Halloween, will the CDC be there to respond?
