Epidemiology of the Living Dead: A social Force Model of a Zombie Outbreak

Abstract

We adapt the social force model of crowd dynamics to capture the evacuation during a zombie outbreak from an academic building. Individuals navigate the building, opening doors, and evacuate to the nearest exit. Zombies chase the uninfected individuals, and once caught there is a probability of a susceptible individual being infected or killed, or for the zombie to be killed by the person being attacked. We find that the speed of the zombies plays a crucial role in the dynamics of the evacuation, the rate of infection, and the number of casualties during the outbreak. The model leads to insights that may be relevant to other, less fictitious, emergency situations.