The instability of our electric lives (zombie infection).

A while ago I read a Straight dope article on something starteling
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mzombiepower.html

So what would happen to society if a rage like or Zombie like virus were to run rampant.  

The answer given is alarming but not surprising.  Power could completely go offline in a very short time.  Probably no longer than a day.  

It brings up a very real question.  If a virus as contagious as rage was released into one human and assuming it was not jumped on immediately and stopped in the first couple hundred infections (which I don’t think is possible)   how fast would the national, international, intercontinental spread be.    Now please keep in mind this is purely prediction based solely on my opinions and in no way is it based in fact and possibly reality.  It is merely how I picture the spread.

I think there would definitely be stages.  A single building could be infected in minutes.  But then the time it takes even fast moving zombies to make it to their next victim would be enough to mobilize at least a few people to start dealing with the problem.  Without adequate training and preparedness this force would be easily overrun in minutes if an hour.  

If this did occur the force would move to the next stage.  This stage would need to be met with insane and unrelenting military force.  I am talking the big one.  Even a small town of 30,000 people if infected would be a very large numbers for any local detachment to deal with and the system would be in place for a global outbreak.  

If this small by today’s standards infection was not met Switch to 3rd stage.  The time it takes to cross the country would vary greatly on peoples reaction.  If people leave the town and make a run for it.  The traffic line would act as a very quick route for an exponential infection to travel much faster than humans so you could expect from that line a fanning effect of infections. If however people mostly stayed home there would be a period of days where it SEEMED the infection could be stopped.

Once the horde crosses the 100,000 mark a million followed by continental infection will occur.  This point there will be pockets intercontinental as well those local forces are now in stage 1 or two.  The 3rd stage can only be met with forces that will severely harm our chances of survival as a species and I think that is now end game.

Don’t get me wrong.  There would be human survivors but we would be quickly reduced to tribal humans one notch down on the food chain with severely flighty behaviors (quivering mass comes to mind).