The Imogen Poots Index

COVID-19 has made much of the U.S. a remote workforce for 28 weeks now, prompting the obvious question, “How does this pandemic stack up against the one depicted in the 2007 horror film 28 Weeks Later?” In the film, a solid sequel to Danny Boyle’s classic 28 Days Later, the world is besieged by the Rage Virus, which launches everyone it infects into a mindless, murderous frenzy. (Some filmgoers might refer to the infected as zombies, but those filmgoers are philistines, and you can safely ignore them.) Our pandemic is perhaps best compared and contrasted with the one in 28 Weeks Later by putting ourselves in the shoes of one of the film’s protagonists, a teenage girl played by Imogen Poots. Spoilers ahead!

You are officially having a pandemic experience as bad as Imogen Poots’ pandemic experience if:

• The cabin where your parents are hiding is overrun by the infected, and your father makes a panicked escape and abandons your mother. Yikes!
• You’re reunited with your father in a safe zone and he lies to you about how your mother died. Not cool, dad!
• You sneak out of the safe zone to collect some things from your former home and find your mother there, alive and delirious. Whaaat?!
• Your mom turns out to be the first known asymptomatic carrier of the virus. But when she forgives your father and seals it with a kiss, he becomes infected and promptly tears her to pieces. WTF, Dad!
• Your dad’s ensuing rampage infects a ton of people and the safe zone quickly falls into chaos. This is almost as embarrassing as the time your dad, who is Robert Carlyle, danced naked in The Full Monty. Face palm!
• Idris Elba orders the zone to be firebombed but you and your brother manage to escape with Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner. A-list!
• You think you’ll be able to keep a low profile by traveling on foot through the London Underground but your dumb infected dad finds you anyway and kills Rose Byrne. When he starts biting your brother, you’ve had enough and you gun your dad down. Take that, Dad!
• You rendezvous at Wembley Stadium with Jeremy Renner’s helicopter pilot pal, who flies you to safety in France. Score!
• Twenty-eight days later, continental Europe is overwhelmed by the virus, presumably because your brother got the asymptomatic gene from your mom and the virus from your bitey dad. Oops!

Give yourself a point for each of the items above that sounds pretty good right about now. If you score above 3, you are having a worse pandemic than Imogen Poots. Take that, Imogen Poots!