The Last of Us: How real is the threat?

The brain-controlling fungal pandemic in HBO's post-apocalyptic thriller is not fiction. It just doesn't affect humans

Within the first few minutes of The Last of Us — a video game masterpiece and an equally well-adapted post-apocalyptic thriller on HBO — a patrolling soldier finds protagonist Joel and his daughter Sarah fleeing Austin and is ordered to eliminate them. Though Joel survives, Sarah is wounded by bullets and dies in her father’s arms. What leads to this iconic, heart-wrenching scene is an outbreak of cordyceps fungal infection, which is turning humans into cannibalistic zombies.

The brain-controlling fungal pandemic — at the core of the video game and series — is not fiction, just it doesn’t affect humans;