If worse came to worse, we could quarantine our nation. Still think a virus could travel trans-ocean w/o a human carrier?
By the time the politicians get the will to do that thousands will be dead.
Naw, I don't see that happening soon enough. Add onto that all the stuff we import etc. I mean it'd have to be real bad to quarentine the nation and then the quarentine could go on for months while we wait for the thing to burn itself out. A national quarentine is no laughing matter and will be for longer than the 14-21 days of incubation as it's being spread in other countries.
Like our hermetically-sealed southern border?
The problem is that the virus may already be here by the time we even think of implementing a quarantine. I've read up on the SmallPox wars, when scientists and governments were embarked on a several decade long mission to eradicate smallpox, and even closing the borders of small Eastern European nations was virtually impossible. Hopefully the powers that be are keeping a very careful eye on this Asian development, as well as the Marburg situation in southern Africa.
Cross reference all the migratory bird routes...
NA & SA
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/othrdata/migratio/routes.htm
Storks in Asia
http://www.gisdevelopment.net/aars/acrs/2000/ts11/glc004.shtml
Migratory Birds and Spread of West Nile Virus in the Western Hemisphere
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no4/rappole.htm
Once it hits the shores, who knows...
In this day and age of PC, an effective quarantine would be impossible. They tried it in 1918, and it only worked in limited cases. Today the ACLU would be locking the doctors up for "false imprisonment" in a day.
It all changed with AIDS. Once a disease gets its own lobbying group, any chance of a quarantine is gone.