I watched the movie "Outbreak" earlier this morning and thought about how they portrayed the U.S. government handling the situation. If some deadly, easily contagious disease did hit a small town like that in the U.S. would they really handle it the way they did? If you have seen the movie you know what I am talking about, if not I'll explain: When this virus hits a small town in California the military basically takes over the city. People are ordered to stay in their homes, given a curfew, not allowed to leave town. The sick are seperated from the healthy and taken to living areas. The military threatens to use force to anybody not obeying the rules. It is shown in the movie that the virus will spread throughout the United States within 48 hours if people were allowed to leave the town. The government finally decides that there is no other way to deal with this disease than bombing the town into oblivion but this is thwarted once the antibodies (or monkey carrying these) is found. With the panic that avian flu is causing in the world right now, how would the government actually handle a situation like this (one similar to that in "Outbreak") where there is a deadly disease with no cure being spread very easily and threatening the country in very little time?
Here is a fact sheet from the CDC Division of Global Migration and Quarantine detailing legal powers. The one big problem that I can see with the film is that the CDC would not be able to use regular US military troops (under Posse Comitatus Act?), but instead would have to use the National Guard who can act as police forces because they are under the control of the states. A good beginning point for studying how something like this would work would be the outbreak of the Reston strain of Ebola which occured in 1989 at Hazleton Research Products in Reston, VA. Though that turned out to not be a strain active in humans, the people at the time thought they were seeing something that could have killed 90%+ of the US population. In case you don't know, Ebola is a hemoragic fever which causes you to essentially turn to bloody pulp inside your body. Normally, Ebola is about 99% fatal but can only be transmited by direct contact of bodily fluids. Before it was determined that Ebola Reston affected only simians, it was learned that the virus was being transmited through the air. If it affected people it litterally could have been the end of civilisation. Naturally, the CDC and the military disease people freaked out as hard as they possibly could until they determined it didn't affect humans. (edit) Actually It seems that some people takes the position that they can deploy regular military troops if they feel like it. This leads me to think that the issue might be in just enough of a gray area that the Army might try to get away with it and only worying about the legality if someone took them to court. Also, the movie was based on a nonfictional book called The Hot Zone. Here is an interview with the Chief CDC guy involved in the incident in the book. He discusses some of the issues with the film.
You must read the The Hot Zone absolutely astounding ~ airborne Ebola passing from lab monkeys to humans (human to human as well..?) in Virginia. Best of all it's a true story.
I don't know whether the US would react like in Outbreak, frankly from watching the response to Katrina I don't think Fed. and local authorities are organized enough to react that quickly. I just hope we never have to find out.
Bingo! If the sucker was airborne, there's no way the Government could really stop the stampede of people.
