Ok so we know that we have brought 25,000 Americans home from other countries. Some of those folks we had to fight for, or POTUS.
Are they the test cases for what we will be dealing with when we bring up the rest? Is all this scramble for cure, vaccines, ventilators, etc. in anticipation of that? Were all the stories about possible plagues 'buried in Antartica' actually about this stuff? We would need protection against whatever those rescued bring with them - and they would need the same against what is here on the surface, no?
This is starting to make way more sense for me the longer I think about it. Also this would be why healthcare workers are taking the 'cure' as a prophylactic. Think about it.
And then there is the fight to get these people out. Expect casualties - that explains the ships and the field hospitals (possibly). This is all conjecture on my part (with the assistance of my Marine son's brain and some minor intel he has gotten re: underground warfare training some have received recently)