Against the apocalypse: a theoretical scenario planning for a zombie epidemic in the Philippines.

Abstract

Have you ever wondered why, in most cases, humanity fails to respond correctly during a zombie pandemic in films? The scenario is almost always portrayed as a total collapse of the system without any semblance of government. Now imagine if the zombie pandemic scenario actually happened in the real world. How would the government react? Would the responses be effective or would it ultimately end like in the movies? Whether the results would be good or bad, this scenario would undoubtedly be one of the worst case scenarios - a disaster of absolutely epic proportions. The study aims to identify and evaluate government responses to a zombie pandemic – a perfect example of large scale health emergency. The study uses secondary sources to create a zombie pandemic scenario which is the most plausible among those portrayed in pop culture. A basic model for scenario planning is then applied to the primary responding government agencies which are the Bureau of Quarantine and the Health Emergency Management Staff of the Department of Health. The plans are then subjected to response reliability measures wherein failure modes are identified and analysed with respect to our scenario. The method revealed that the government agencies treat a zombie epidemic as another highly communicable disease. This suggests that there current mechanisms are enough to mitigate the damages that the disease would bring. However, the failure modes identified for the scenarios are likely to happen in a zombie epidemic. This would imply that the current mechanisms, while decent, are not enough and needs improvement. The method also exposes several problems in the current system that hinders the effective execution of the mechanisms that are in place. Among these problems are the structural limitations of the agencies, lack of budget for proper training and the tendency for political grandstanding by politicians.