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This is a TV series from the early 2000s (maybe the late 90s). It was on prime time TV in the US.

There is a government agency that has a time machine that allows the main character to jump back in time a day or a week - I can't remember exactly, but it couldn't send you very far back in time.

I recall one episode where a terrorist releases some sort of virus from a lab that kills lots of people, including someone important (maybe the President?). The first symptom is a bloody nose. The hero has to go back over and over to stop the outbreak, each time getting closer and closer to the culprit before he breaks the vial that contains the virus. When he finally succeeds, he is the only one infected, but they immediately quarantine him and give him treatment.

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    for a moment there I thought this was going to be Quantum Leap...
    – Jimmery
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 10:05
  • yep, that's what I thought too!
    – Ilessa
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 14:28

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Seven Days (1998)?

From IMDb:

Salvaging the material and technology from the spaceship crash at Roswell, the NSA secretly develops a spherical time-ship that has the limited ability to send one person back in time, up to seven days. Called 'Project Backstep', it is reserved for selective use, only to undo significant, recent, disastrous events. The pilot, or chrononaut, of the 'sphere', is a Lt. Frank Parker. An ex-Navy SEAL with a loose-cannon/free-spirit quality, he is supported by a vast staff of technicians and a few main character specialists. Not only do they deal with correcting disasters, but also the only-slightly-better-than-crude, theoretical, patch-work, barely-understood execution of time travel.

The third episode is called "The Gettysburg Virus" and might be a match:

Recalled from a survival exercise, Parker has to go back to prevent the release of a virus that will devastate the world's population.

Found with the Google query tv series government time machine site:imdb.com/title.

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    That's it! I couldn't find it on the tv time travel wiki, and not including the site:imdb.com/title in the query doesn't bring it up either. I'll have to remember that trick.
    – BlackThorn
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 20:14
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    @BlackThorn glad to have helped! :) yes, the site: trick is super handy - by the way, in case you (or others) are looking for some other Google/story-ID tricks like this one, I wrote that guide a couple months ago... if one's curious :)
    – Jenayah
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 20:19
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    What always puzzled me was that the traveler always had to call in to alert Project Backstep that he'd time-traveled and there was a crisis, which suggested that the seven-day-earlier version of him and the time machine hadn't disappeared, which would mean they'd have an accumulation of Frank Parkers and time machines.
    – jeffronicus
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 17:42
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    @jeffronicus I'm pretty sure they did disappear, though you're right; it's odd that no-one noticed that. But there was never any mention of past-Parker when future-Parker went back in time, for example, and if if he stole someone's wallet and took that back in time, the victim's wallet would mysteriously have vanished, establishing that the same object can't exist twice at the same time.
    – Ross Thompson
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 19:40
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    It was hard to watch after the monkey episodes
    – Mark Rogers
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 19:43

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