The Cordyceps infections in The Last of Us aren’t entirely real — but the lack of a fungal vaccine is
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on February 11, 2023
The second episode of the HBO hit The Last Of Us opens with a scene in Jakarta, Indonesia. It’s set in 2003, at the beginning of a (fictional) fungal pandemic that goes on to destroy the world as we know it. After an expert in fungal biology evaluates the body of an infected factory worker, she speaks quietly to a military official who has asked for her help controlling the pathogen’s spread.
“There is no vaccine,” she says to his stricken face.
It was true in real-world 2003, and it . . .
