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Zombies In The News: Living Dead To Help Liven Up A Counterterrorism Summit

Need to lighten up your day? Invite some of these folks. (A "zombie walk" in Stockholm on Aug. 25.)
Jonathan Nackstrand
/
AFP/Getty Images
Need to lighten up your day? Invite some of these folks. (A "zombie walk" in Stockholm on Aug. 25.)

There's no rest for the undead, it seems.

Zombies have been used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help spread tips about preparing for natural disasters. They've been "studied" by Canadian researchers trying to figure out the best way to respond to new, highly infectious diseases.

And they're constantly prowling the woods of Georgia for AMC's The Walking Dead.

Now, Army Times reports, zombies are going to be featured players next month at HALO Corp.'s "annual counterterrorism summit in San Diego, a five-day event providing hands-on training, realistic demonstrations, lectures and classes geared to more than 1,000 military personnel, law enforcement officials, medical experts, and state and federal government workers."

According to Army Times, "the zombies who roam the island will harass the troops, first-aid teams and medical responders participating." The idea is to "add some levity to the more dire scenarios summit-goers will encounter — incidents depicting active shooters inside a hospital or downed pilots trapped behind enemy lines, for instance."

(H/T to All Things Considered's Gerry Holmes.)

(Note: Yes, we know there's no such things as zombies. ... At least we think there's no such thing. Let us know if you see any.)

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.