Ring immunization?
"Forced immunization is not an option."
So there goes ring immunization being any effect at all.
Then there was sealing the borders.
Look, I've worked at sealing borders. It ain't easy. You basically have to station people, in groups so they don't get overrun, at close and regular intervals. And you can't be nice to those who are attempting to cross. Not if you really want a sealed border. Part of the military plan for sealing the border with our southern neighbor included shoot-to-kill orders for runners. If they did not stop, they got shot. Ditto people attempting to cross internally. If the car or truck or whatever wasn't willing to stop, light them up.
"Force is not an option. Closing internal borders is not an option."
Okay, can we at least cut off international travel?
Actually . . . no. Persons who were from "affected" countries were to be quarantined, nicely and for no more than three days. "Affected" countries were countries which had declared themselves to be "widely and endemically infected" by H5N1.
Look, China, which is now about a quarter of its pre-Plague population and five countries and change in a fourteen-way internecine war, never declared themselves "widely and endemically infected."
We didn't cut off international travel. Everyone else cut off international travel from us.
Of course, by then it was too late. There were still planes flying to and from Hong Kong after it had basically ceased to function. They stopped because they couldn't be sure of getting refueled. And they were flying straight from Hong Kong, which was in direct contact with the Mainland, to LAX and San Francisco and Seattle. People would be held for a couple of days in isolation, board another plane and fly on. Some of them to Europe which cut off travel from us before we came close to shutting down from anyone.
Frankly, the only reason it didn't break out faster was people ignoring their orders. Sure, the guys sitting in the room with the Prez arguing till they were blue in the face had to send down suicidal orders. Didn't mean that the guys and gals in the field obeyed them.
Quarantine in L.A. was heavy until things started to break down in California. Ditto Seattle. Not so much in San Fransisco which is probably one of the reasons they got hit pretty quick. And hard. Lord forgive those fags, they got hit hard.
Then there were the big order breakers. People still have a hard time codifying the response. It depends on who's writing about it. "Pseudo-secessionists" is one term. "Knee-jerk reactionaries" was a term used at the time along with "racists" (never quite understood that one unless they were talking about Mexican immigrants), "fascists," etc. Big litany of "you're bad people."
Hawaii was the big winner in the "racist/fascist/reactionary" category. Okay, Hawaiians are racists. If you're not native Hawaiian there are laws saying you can't have certain jobs. There are Natives and there are "haoles." But, strangely enough, nobody was calling them that. In fact, despite their actions at the time, nobody was quite sure how to respond.
Lemme explain. The news media was filled with liberals. They might not like what the Hawaiians did but, hey, they're our little brown brothers! (Hawaiians, like Samoans and for similar reasons, tend to be motherfucking big little brown brothers. But it's pretty hard to get a liberal off their mental grooves.) Conservatives by and large thought they were about the only smart people in the nation and wished they were in Hawaii.
Basically, Hawaii cut itself off. No planes were permitted to land to do more than refuel or get fixed if they needed it. Then "hie-away with you! No fucking lei for your ass! Aloha!" Ditto boats from outside Hawaiian waters. They'd give them some food and fuel if they had it but then get the fuck out of here.
They shut down internal travel as well and required documentation of immunization. And the immunizations that got sent to them a. arrived slower than on the mainland and they could see the Prez's order was fucked up and b. were packed for air-travel so they kept for long enough for everyone to get the fucking clue.
Hawaii came through the whole damned thing with nothing but a major depression. Racist fuckers. Smart racist fuckers, I'll give you.
Then there were the ones that did get called racists and fascists and all the rest; the L states.
I put it that way because it wasn't exactly the states of the Confederacy. Tennessee was a border state in the War Against Slavery. And there were some that weren't near the Old South like Wyoming.
Why the L states?
Way back in the 2000 election a map came out of the vote patterns. Back then we'd call it the "red and blue" states. Red states went for Bush, blue states went for Al "I Invented The Internet" Gore.
I always hated the "red/blue" divide. I'm military. Red forces are the bad guys. I'm not a bad guy and I'm a red stater.
But if you look at the map, it's a big fucking L for the red states. Southeast, then up through the midwest with a bit on either side in the southwest and northeast.
Fly-over country. The Dust Bowl. Hell, the Bible Belt.
Not all of them were "reactionary." Missouri followed the President's orders to the letter. See St. Louis.
Others, however, had a different opinion. I call it "disorganized civil disobedience." They waited for the Prez to announce the Plan, heard the New Plan and went "Oh, hell no!"
A lot of them got some or most of the immunization plan right. When reports from Mississippi started coming in of shipments of vaccine and nowhere to store them the word went down, from the governor, not the state director of Health, that they should store them anywhere. Get cops to help if necessary.
Short example. County Health in Jefferson County, Mississippi, got a bunch of styrofoam boxes from FedEx marked "Vital Medical Materiaclass="underline" Refrigerate." They didn't require a truckload, fortunately for them.
The director of County Health, a nice old lady I caught on the news one time talking about her response, called the only store in town, Piggly Wiggly, and told them she had a big problem. Piggly Wiggly dumped out enough room in their storage room for all the boxes.
Atlanta? Screwed the pooch. Ditto Mobile, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Savannah . . . The list is long.
Small towns? Small counties? Small cities even? Better than 50% by current estimate "presented optimal or near optimal distribution response." They reacted, adapted and overcame.
Okay, call it "red/blue" if you wish. Red got it about 50% right. Blue? About 7%.
The response expanded from that. "Forced immunization is not an option." Yeah, right, tell it to the people of Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. There were areas where forced immunization wasn't an option, mostly the big cities, due to lack of vaccine. But the order went out and damn the President or the media wailers. School kids were immunized production line style in every state. Smart or not, those governors went for "children first" at the very least. Overtime paramedics, EMTs, cops, nurses, whoever had a clue about sticking a needle, visited work-places. It didn't last long; things went to hell too fast. But the order went out and the process started.
The President actually ordered the National Guard in those states to be used to stop the forced immunizations. Even when they were as a part of ring immunization responses. (CDC was just outside Atlanta and the guys and gals left there tried. Lord they tried . . . )