[stilts]

According to his book Biohazard, Soviet defector Alibek (one of the scientists in charge of the bio weapons program) a crucial step in weaponizing any bio agent is to make it resistent to known vaccines and treatments.

[nebulas]

In Richard Preston's book THE DEMON IN THE FREEZER, the point is made that if you have the smallpox virus available then it only takes the equivalent of a moderately equipped college lab to alter the virus and produce smallpox that is vaccine resistant.

I have serious doubts about the medical community being able to quarantine and contain an outbreak of "garden variety smallpox, let alone a strain that would be resistant.