“The Last of Us” recently premiered its first episode and, although he remained relatively faithful to the naughty dog video game, modified certain aspects and added information necessary for the understanding of this universe. One of them was the explanation of the origin of the zombie apocalypse and why the fungal pandemic it was much more dangerous.
The chapter titled “When You Are Lost in Darkness” It aired on HBO Max on Sunday, January 15, and was very well received by audiences.
For the first few minutes, a scene is shown where explain how dangerous mushrooms can be and it was an omen for what would come later.
Unlike other franchises like “Resident Evil” or “The Walking Dead”, the emergence of the zombies was not due to a virus, but to the Cordyceps, an entomopathogenic fungus that exists in real life Why was it so much worse?
In episode 1 of “The Last of Us”, the first scene It is set in the year 1968 and consists of an interview program in which they speak with two experts from the risk of a pandemic by micro-organisms such as viruses or bacteria.
In this time, the world was going through a pandemic caused by influenza A (H3N2)according to the archives of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the United States. It is estimated that there is 1 million deaths worldwide and nearly 100,000 in the North American country.
Since 1968 in ‘The Last of Us’, experts have been warning of the imminent danger of a possible fungal pandemic (Picture: HBO)
During the pandemic interview, one of the specialists comments that a much more dangerous pandemic would be that of mushrooms. Although he assures that viruses can kill infected people, microorganisms such as Cordyceps seek to control their host, consume it and reproduce.
In real life, enter hosts as insects and some species are able to influence their behavior. For example, they make them climb to the top of a plant before dying, releasing body spores that sprout from the animal’s carcass.
For him, it makes more sense that a figure like a human zombie is the product of a fungusinstead of an insect.
As revealed in “The Last of Us”, there are no fungal pandemics within the human species, due to the temperatures in which these organisms usually live. However, the expert also mentions that there are scenarios in which these can mutate to withstand higher temperaturesQuoi global temperature risea clear reference from the show to the danger of climate change.
The explanation given in the HBO Max series rturns out to be much more terrifying whereas we are still in a viral pandemic which caused millions of deaths and which the consequences of global warming are increasingly evident.
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