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Why is everyone so put out by the little leaps in logic with this show? It's about zombies. If you can't suspend disbelief for the sake of being entertained, what's the point?
There are potentially logical explanations for every one of the "flaws" people have pointed out, for the sake of argument, I'll throw around a few ideas, but really, I can't imagine sitting there watching this show and looking for each and every little logical inconsistency.
"Why do people die from bites/scratches when they're already infected with the virus?"
Many viruses (and let's not just assume that whatever causes people to become walkers is a typical virus or behaves in the same ways as those we're familiar with...for all we know there's a friggin supernatural/paranormal/quantum physics element to it, haha) can be introduced to an organism and lie dormant and the "infected" is basically just a carrier wherein no signs or deleterious effects result.
It is feasible that these carriers could become actively infected after other substances are introduced and/or the virus undergoes some sort of transformation. It's possible that the virus, as a living organism, has a life cycle, perhaps like rabies where once certain other conditions are met post-infection, the virus behaves differently, mutates, rapidly reproduces and overwhelms other cells, etc.
There are many plausible explanations as to why a bite/scratch/direct bodily fluid contact would cause a change. 1.) there could literally be a chain reaction caused by the body's physiological response to trauma, i.e. shock whereas the virus responds to physiological changes brought on by the attack/injury itself. 2.) There could be varying levels of virus material between carriers and actively infected walkers. It could be that introducing walker saliva, blood, tissue, etc. to a carrier's blood causes a chemical reaction or somehow amplifies the virus. Specifically, it could be that the virus becomes active in the wake of an immuno response, hijacking white blood cells or t-cells and begins to attack healthy cells in a sort of micro-walker bite scenario 3.) It could be that the virus itself is ONLY active in dead or infarcted tissue. If that were the case, it could be posited that a zombie bite/scratch causes necrosis in the surrounding tissue (like a rapid onset gangrene) which makes it susceptible to the virus, triggering a systemic surge of the virus. This possibility fits nicely with the fact that all people who die, regardless of cause, be come walkers...it could just be that a healthy, active immune system keeps the virus at bay, and when that system ceases to function (death would certainly cause that cessation) the virus works it's magic. 4.) It's possible that virus has "male" and "female" or A and B subtypes and that full on active infection is contingent upon the two coming together. Expanding on that, it's possible that once the virus is active, or the person has become a walker, there is a secondary virus or a chemical process that results in a "delivery" virus being developed (bad analogy: you have radioactive plutonium, harmful, but that potential for harm is exponentially increased when it's implanted into a missile).
I realize none of those explanations are fool-proof or spot on, but the reason I did that was simply to say if you're going to start asking those sorts of internal show logic q's, go a step further and try to think of possible explanations. That's a big if, and I would recommend not doing either and just enjoying the show for what it is, haha.
As far as why don't people cover their mouth, and/or why aren't they infected by swallowing walker blood....well I don't know. It may be that there is a plausible reason,or it may be as simple as the producers decided to sacrifice a small degree of "reality" so that they didn't have to cover the faces of their actors. It's TV, it could be simply a pragmatic situation where covering faces makes getting dialog difficult....It could be that simple. This issue is though a little tougher to defend because on the show they go to lengths to ensure that their water isn't tainted by walker tissue (the well, and the canal in the prison yard), but then again, we haven't (they haven't) seen an instance where someone became infected by ingesting water contaminated by walker tissue, so we don't know that it even is transferable in that way, so perhaps they're just being cautious which is perfectly reasonable. There are many substances, chemicals, bacteria/viruses that are not orally active, meaning that they aren't transmitted through introduction to the mouth or GI tract.
Annnnd.....that's a whole lot of writing about pointless shit, hahaha. Guess that it's a good thing when a show can create this kind of dialog and debate, though. Hey, anything to avoid studying for my OEC midterm though, right? Ok, ok...back to reading about respiratory emergencies and thoracic trauma...
