AMC Walking Dead [Spoilers]

Going by my "virus induced" zombie infection knowledge/thoughts (which is very limited so feel free to skip over this post), the initial infection was most likely contact/ingestion of the virus. If the virus was made for warfare purposes or if it was suppose to be a medicine that mutated (I Am Legend type of mutation, I know they're not zombies but best comparison I can think of with 3 hours of sleep and lots of caffine... Because that will help me sleep.) Anyway, first couple of people that get infected start spreading the virus vial bites (scratches too in the show I believe? I thought it was mentioned at some point.) After which its an all out break-out. Now, the dead are still just that; dead. The virus infects the brain causing it to shut down. Then, the virus causes the brain to boot up again. However, it only gets the basic functions going. That is movement, sight, sound, use of appendages and instincts. But the body itself is still decomposing. The smell that comes from a corpse is gases escaping the body, along with rotting of the flesh/muscles. It might be possible (or impossible and I'm just spouting nonsense) that the virus in the infected zombie is being released into the air via the gases coming from the body. It could be that the uninfected breathed in weaker bits of the virus; as in the virus is force to be dormant rather than instant death/reanimation.

This most likely isn't a very good assumption, so anyone can pick at it. Or agree with it. Or whip it til its name is Tobi. One thing I do think though; the baby will be born healthy AND, because the mother was infected during pregnancy and given the time she has been carrying the virus, it could be quite possible that the baby will have developed antibodies to the virus. Thus opening a door which a cure the living is made. Or, make it into a type of "weapon" against the undead. Spray it over them with like a crop plane or something.

Have I mentioned I've only had three hours of sleep the last two days? :<

While everyone has the disease, the zombie bites do bring some kind of near instantaneous infection, likely because of them being decaying bodies, that is sure to cause death if left completely untreated thus meaning that person is pretty much 100% guaranteed to die.

However, if you amputate the limb bitten, it gives them an actual chance of survival, though it also opens up the risk of normal infection of the now likely much larger amputation wound, it's still a higher chance than if the bitten limb remained.

Basically, they're not worried about the zombie virus, they're stuck with that ***. They're worried about the infection (which brings such severe symptoms as you've probably seen or heard about in previous episodes) that the zombies seem to cause when they bite, it's not any special disease simply an extremely bad infection that leads to death somewhat quickly.