About two weeks? Here's my best attempt to break it down chronologically based on my rewatches.
As early as Day 0 FEMA is seen urging people to find safety and it's mentioned that the CDC is looking into the crisis(This is from the webisode 'Torn Apart' but it seems FTWD would contradict these events as Tobias seems to know the most). The military is deployed en masse either on Night 3 or Day 4 of the outbreak when the Governor of California and presumably the President declare a state of emergency. Between Day 4 and Day 13 the military is setting up safe zones, quarantining potential infected citizens, and conducting combat operations against the dead. It also appears that there is no national news media in place at this time.
According those in Alexandria there was a massive evacuation around Washington DC, emptying out Northern Virginia and presumably parts of Maryland, no small task given the millions living in the Chesapeake area. Dave and Tony seem to confirm this as well through hearing rumors of military relocation efforts. Around this time Shane see's the army executing any potential threats in a panicked withdrawal at Rick's hospital on Day 14, on the same day Madison seems to witness similar drastic measures. Operation Cobalt was planned for Day 15 and the firebombing of LA seems roughly the same time as Atlanta so it looks like the collapse in FTWD wasn't regional. In addition to LA, Atlanta, Portland, and San Diego, we hear Vancouver i.e. Canadian soil was also hit. Interestingly it does not appear that Washington DC was bombed during Cobalt, suggesting some attempt to continue government operations there.
On Day 17 we hear radio broadcasts from an overwhelmed Coast Guard and learn communications are breaking down west of the continental divide. On Day 20 we see elements of the Mexican army still deployed. A lone Dr. Jenner in the CDC loses outside communication between Days 30-33 after hearing the French are close to a solution. Around this time Strand communicates with a cosmonaut on the space station who reveals the collapse is global in scale. By the time Rick wakes up around Day 59 the US has totally collapsed. The last semblance of organized government/military we see is around Day 300 when Lieutenant Welles mentions having been stationed at a secure refugee camp shortly before it's compromised and overrun.
That seems fairly fast given the implication that the governments of the world had some idea of what was going shortly before the FTWD pilot. The World Health Organization had time to develop protocols, local police knew something was amiss, Dr. Exner knows the pathology of the disease, and Lieutenant Moyers knows their dealing with the dead. Conversely, Rick's group doesn't know that this phenomena affects everyone who dies well into the timeline, reenforcing the idea the government tried covering up the pandemic's nature.
Of course the simple answer is it's just a show and things collapsed because the story needs it too but its fun to speculate about the timeline.
Submitted November 02, 2020 at 10:46PM by ooooohnoyobogoya https://ift.tt/35Y4qiP
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