As most of you know by now (and as is documented elsewhere on this site) the zombie plague originated at a research facility in suburban Maryland. Maryland has been a hotspot ever since, and the plague has slowly spread up the northeast corridor into New Jersey, New York and New England. Hotspots have popped up elsewhere around the world as well, as geocachers travel to find hides, and they take the plague with them. The trends we have been following outside of North America have had the expected progress in the week or so since the last report. Northern and central Europe continue to show significant activity, especially in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Germany. Belgium and France have calmed down a bit, but are still quite active, as is Portugal. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are continuing to see some activity as well. In Asia, the slow increase in activity is still going on, with Okinawa in the limelight.
We have long feared a migratory spread out of Maryland to the west, and with this week’s analysis, we fear it has finally begun. Increased activity in Virginia we have long been expecting, but the explosion of activity going westward that we see in this week’s reports, is terribly disheartening. The below screen capture, from one of the recent analysis tools we have had under development shows it best:
You can see a steady march of reported sightings (circles with numbers) from Maryland towards Colorado, and an explosion of activity in Colorado. Not clear why Missouri was spared, and it may just be a data anomaly, but we got nor reports on sightings there this week. We think trend is directly attributable to increased geocaching activity related to Geowoodstock XIV, which is being held in Denver, Colorado this coming Sunday. We hope we are wrong, but we suspect next week’s report will feature a significant increase in activity in Colorado.
We would also note that over the past month or so we have received numerous reports on previously unknown zombie travel bugs; in the last week alone ten new ZTBs (Patients 342-352) have been reported.
So. The population of infected cachers is increasing, and the plague is spreading. Same old news I guess. Bummer. What will the future hold?