Quarantine plans?

In case of a major bioplague what are the governments contigency plans? Would they evac important people to the countryside into miltary-run quarantine centers? Or would they utilize unconventional means, like prisons or whatever?

History has shown that in these circumstances they will basically not allow people in our out of the cities and things. Where the area of movement allowed being relative to the size of the outbreak. That is what I would expect.

For the other things you mention to be done, it would have to be something that wasn't very contagious and they could be separated from the population.

Originally posted by Ranger23
In case of a major bioplague what are the governments contigency plans? Would they evac important people to the countryside into miltary-run quarantine centers? Or would they utilize unconventional means, like prisons or whatever?

Putting people into quarintine centers is the least likely scenario, since it's very obviously the worst possible choice; it's the exact opposite of what a quarantine is supposed to be. People will be exposed to other people, if some are infected, it will spread like wildfire, and indeed, critical military people would have massive exposure to infected people that way.

building special prisons for all potentially infected citizens would be infeasibly expensive, take months to years to construct, by which time, everyone would probably either be over it or be dead, and wouldn't really serve to prevent the infection from spreading any more effectively than keeping people in their homes.

Typical contingency plans involve telling everyone to remain in their homes, closing down all air and sea travel, probably blocking all major routes of land travel, and probably enforcing a curfew. Food will probably be distributed by government workers, possibly the national guard or FEMA, possibly to each house's door to reduce the amount of time people are out of their homes. City water systems will probably be kept running as a priority, unless they are the source of the infection.

I have to wonder, though: what would they do with the people who have no homes to go to, or who refuse to stay in them? The authorities can't arrest them if they're very numerous, because that's a health risk, and takes up facility space. They can't shoot them because that's unsanitary and a health risk, and would get ordinary citizens outraged, They can't boot them out of the city because they'll naturally seek out places where other people live, invalidating the whole point of quarantine.

I think the only effective course of action would be to move all those who can't or won't return to their homes to designated buildings or sets of tents, and then try to separate the infected from the healthy, and move them into separate areas to protect the healthy ones. Naturally, that kind of situation is a lot less effective for quarantine, but I doubt there's a much better option.