In The Last of Us, it is not clear whether Ellie can infect other people with the cordyceps fungus yet, even though she seems to be immune to it.
HBO’s The Last of Us series quickly became a huge success, and the show was incredibly popular from the moment that its first episode aired.
However, there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the show. This is because even though Ellie is immune, it is still unclear whether she can infect other people or not.
Is the The Last of Us series popular?
Just because a game was successful, it does not necessarily mean that a series based on that game will be just as successful. Fortunately, The Last of Us post-apocalyptic television series has been an instant hit so far.
The premiere episode was watched by 4.7 million viewers in the United States during just the first night of its release.
Since then, more than 22 million viewers have watched this episode and the show’s name was even the number 1 trending topic worldwide on Twitter.
The Last of Us: Can Ellie infect others?
The success of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation is due in large part to how the creators of the show, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, have managed to stay true to the original storyline in the video game.
However, many fans who are now avid watchers of the show do have questions about the world and the characters in the show.
In the end of the first episode of the series, it is revealed that Ellie has already been infected with the dreaded cordyceps fungus.
Joel and Tess quickly figure out that there is something special about her, since infected people usually turn within just a few days, but her infection is already several weeks old at this point.
Even with the built-in lore of the game, there is still a lot that is unknown about Ellie’s immunity. It may eventually become evident that the cordyceps fungi inside her are a mutated version of the fungus, as it did in the game.
This means that although she could technically infect other people because she, herself is infected, there is no way to tell how this mutated fungus will react once it is passed on to someone else.
She is also not as violent as the other people who become infected, and it is unlikely that she will end up biting someone to infect them.
When was Ellie infected?
The Last of Us series never actually shows when Ellie was bitten, but from the mark on her arm and the fact that the FEDRA agent scans her before she stabs him, it is plain to see that the cordyceps fungi are in her system though she is not showing any signs of being infected.
In the game, however, Ellie is infected when she is bitten while visiting the mall with her friend Riley.
In the end, the only fact that is important in the series is that she was infected about three weeks prior to Joel and Tess finding out about the bite, which seemingly confirms her immunity.
How does the infection timeline usually progress?
The fact that Ellie was asymptomatic for weeks after she was infected is what makes her such a central part of the plot, since most of the infected cannot last more than two days before becoming mindless zombies.
The usual stages of infection with the cordyceps fungus are as follows:
| Stage | Timeframe | Description |
| 1: Runners | 2 days | Loss of higher brain function |
| 2: Stalkers | 2 weeks | Loss of eyesight |
| 3: Clickers | About a year | Complete loss of eyesight and use of echolocation |
| 4: Bloaters | About a decade | Overrun with fungus and ability to spread spores |
Why is Ellie immune to the fungus?
Ellie’s immunity was one of the biggest mysteries in the The Last of Us game and to this day, the creators of the game have been deliberately vague about the nature of her immunity to the fungus.
One of the leading theories that fans have come up with in the meantime is that Ellie’s mother was infected while she was pregnant and this gave Ellie an inborn immunity to the fungus.
But of course, it is always possible that the creators of The last of Us series will decide to give create own context as to why Ellie is seemingly the only person in this world who is immune to the effects of the fungus.
However, so far, no attempt has been made to explain it in the first three episodes and it is likely that fans will just never get an explanation at all, like in the game.
