How would the American government deal with an incurable biological (virus/bacterial/parasite etc.) outbreak?

We're in the United States, sometime in the next few years. Through a series of circumstances, a viral outbreak occurs in the country. For the sake of detail, this is how it happens:

• A scientific organization has a research outpost somewhere with thick ice sheets: say Greenland or Antarctica
• Scientists there discover a buried fossil in the permafrost (could be anything, and in any way - maybe they drilled into the ice for research or maybe the ice just melted there because of global warming)

• This ancient fossil harbored an ancient virus - This actually exists

• The above virus was found to be around 30k years old, but for the purposes of our setting, let's say the one found by the scientists is older - millions of years old. I don't think this is too much of a leap

• The virus infects the first scientist - patient zero - unknowingly. This virus will be airborne, extremely contagious and with a long incubation period (6 months to a year). No symptoms for the time being
• After the research project is complete, the scientist goes home - let's say he lives in NYC but is of Chinese origin and has family in Beijing
• He's already infected almost everyone in his outpost (let's say a very small % of people are immune)
• The flight back to the US has a stop in, let's say Argentina. He infects more people there, who eventually will go on to big cities like Buenos Aires, Santiago and Rio de Janeiro
• He arrives in NYC, at JFK airport, and infects even more people there. From here, the spread across the country should be straightforward as JFK is one of the biggest hubs in the US
• a few months later, the virus has finished incubating and the first symptoms start showing up and they're very similar to the common cold. it just so happens that it's late fall - flu season is in full effect and these symptoms are pretty much expected in most people
• And then people slowly start dying, starting with the first infected and the death toll is already in the tens of thousands before anyone can even react
• More and more people start dying by the day. This is happening in South America as well, and in Asia - our patient zero took a little trip to China to see family after his return from his project
• Quarantines are formed and the military captures infected people to study them. They find the virus but can't make any heads or tails of it as they have never seen anything like this before

At this point, how would the government in the US deal with this contagion, if thousands are dying by the day and there doesn't seem to be a cure in sight and the virus is absolutely nothing like anything that has been seen before?

posted about 5 years ago

Faz‭

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