Montana Virus Exposure Has Big Zombie Movie Energy

Did you know every zombie movie opens this way? Not with zombies. Not with panic in the streets. It always begins with a minor lab accident, then the soothing voice over: “We have it contained,” while scary music thrums in the background.

And, Montana may be the setting for the beginning of the end.

According to the Ravalli Republic, an employee at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton was exposed to Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever due to a breach in personal protective equipment. Already a sentence that feels like it should come attached to both an apology from the government and a roll of duct tape.

That Virus Name Is Doing A Lot

“Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever” sounds like one of those things you’re about to see flash across a Cold War documentary right before it cuts to grainy black and white footage of a guy in a hazmat suit, and some massive metal door being locked. It is not what you’d expect to see associated with the Bitterroot Valley.

It’s the sort of virus name that makes you want to wash your hands every time you even think about it. I'm stocking up on hand sanitizer immediately.

The Good News Is Nobody Got Infected

Here’s the important part. The employee was quickly isolated and monitored, officials said, and later tested negative for infection. The NIH also said there was no threat to the public.

So no, Hamilton is not becoming a scene from the beginning of The Last of Us.

Even so, it is a little wild to know that in the same town where people debate snowplows and elk herds, there’s also a place where viruses with horror movie names live behind locked doors. It’ll make you rethink that morning coffee.

Montana Does Not Have To Be The Origin Story

Nobody’s getting sick, nobody’s mutating, and nobody is shuffling through town in search of brains. But if you spot a dude in a hazmat suit reaching for some beef jerky at the Town Pump, maybe give him the right of way.