You guys are complaining that the characters are dumb? The main character is a cop... from the deep south... Other cast mates consist of some trailer trash woman whose kid got lost and husband got killed. A backwoods redneck who has supposedly had run ins with the law. Some "african american" from the south with a gold front tooth... The only people who seem intelligent are Hershel, his oldest daughter, and the asian kid. Dale wasn't too bad either, but "intellectuals" tend to get persecuted/ignored in the south. Oh, and about them wearing better clothes to ward off scratches. Dale had his fucking chest/stomach ripped open by a zombie's dead, bare hands. Like, how the fuck did that happen? clothes can't prevent that shit if it's possible. And yeah, there was that guy in season 1 that had the bad fever from being bit and they left him by a tree to die, so either bites/scratches super-infect you, kill you, and then turn you into a zombie , or they just give you a bad infection that kills you and then you turn into a zombie because you are already infected. Either way, same outcome. Scratches/bites = bad.
Edit: and i'm from Mississippi, fyi.