Pandemic

20 years after the start of a new Century, and during an intractible war around the world, an upstart nation born of bloody revolution had a virus breakout.  A pretty deadly virus.  The government routinely cracked down on the free flow of information, exacerbating the response.  Because of a recent burst of global travel, the virus spread like wildfire. 

No, not Covid-19 in China.  Spanish Flu, from Kansas.  1920, not 2020.  (Well, really 1918.)  Wilson had a tyrannical stranglehold on the press. 

It killed 675,000 Americans (and a lot more around the world.)  Out of a population of 107,000,000.  So, to meet those number we'd have to see 1.8 million dead in this country for this new thing.

Well, 'new.'  It's just a mutated strain of stuff that's been around forever.  Read the back of your Lysol spray can.  It kills Corona, says so right there.