system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Zombie Apocalypse] Would a zombie virus have variants like COVID?
gpt
If it's an actual virus, probably, because all viri mutate rapidly and spawn variants. The genetic code of a virus is much simpler than a true living organism, and much more prone to change.

However, that doesn't mean a new variant will become dominant. In *The Walking Dead*, it was stated that all humans are already infected with the zombie virus, but it doesn't take hold until they carrier dies. In a case like this, it would be impossible to out-compete the original virus, because it had already achieved saturation. New variants would therefore quickly die out.

Also, "zombie virus" might not be accurate; it might just be the best way for people to describe what they think was happening. In the original *Night of the Living Dead*, it was implied that the zombie apocalypse was caused by radiation from a satellite. In other media, zombies are caused by black magic, or by poison. None of those are going to mutate.