Part of the big problem here is that thanks to Congress basically being a giant gridlock, we do not have a Surgeon General right now, so the job of overseeing all this is basically falling to the heads of the CDC and NIH, who shouldn't be having to both oversee their agencies AND communicate with the public. This czar can hopefully fill in the role the Surgeon General would have. In terms of the nurse who was on the flight, she registered a fever of 99.1 (I think) and the cut off for flying is 100.4. I heard on an NPR talk show I listen to that that particular regulation may be revisited due to Ebola.
But here's one thing to consider. Basically unless you're a health worker, your risk of getting this disease in the U.S. remains incredibly low, and unfortunately, IMO, we're still largely overreacting to this and the media really doesn't do much to help as fear is marketable. This disease does not spread to you unless you come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is symptomatic. This thing with disinfecting planes, shutting down schools over fear of Ebola, etc. is accomplishing little except spreading panic. The larger public is not at much risk here; again, we're approaching flu season and that poses a far greater risk to the average American than Ebola does as it spreads much more easily and kills far more here. But you don't see the flu all over the news. The flu spreads through air droplets that can be coughed or sneezed by an infected individual. Ebola doesn't produce those sorts of respiratory symptoms, and doesn't spread that way like flu does. And right now, current evidence indicates that Ebola mutating so it can spread like flu is extremely, extremely unlikely. Ebola only spreads if you come into contact with bodily fluids like blood, sweat, vomit, etc. of an infected patient. That's it. Most people aren't doing that kind of thing, and most people are thus at little risk of contracting the virus.
That's not to say we shouldn't be careful, or undervalue our health workers. Our health workers definitely need better training so they can protect themselves while treating patients with this virus, but unfortunately, both the CDC and NIH have been subject to massive budget cuts in the last few years, which hampers their ability to get health workers and hospitals adequate training and resources to deal with this kind of disease. The waste management of the Ebola patient in Dallas was apparently a huge problem as I heard on Rachel Maddow yesterday, as people with this disease are expelling massive amounts of infectious fluid and it creates infectious waste (towels, sheets, etc.). Right about now, in terms of bungling up this case in Dallas with the original patient and the nurses, it seems that both the hospital, local public health officials and the CDC are all at fault. The hospital shouldn't have turned him away in the first place as he had told the staff he was recently in Liberia (which should be a big red flag), they should've acted quicker once he was admitted to get the staff properly protected, and the CDC shouldn't have green lighted the nurse to travel, given her history of having treated the patient for a period without protective gear when he was probably highly infectious.
This is one of those things where the medical world knows quite well what to do and how to do it. The question is, do hospitals, the CDC and NIH, collectively, have both the will and the resources to do it? And if they don't have the resources, are we, as a society, willing to give them those resources?
If we, as a country, want to do something about Ebola, we'd be much better served committing resources to West Africa and organizations acting there, where it truly is a crisis, then panicking at home over 3 cases out of over 300 million people, at the cusp of flu season, which kills thousands of Americans each year. The second thing we need to do is properly protect, prepare and train our health care workers. But after that, this virus is not much to fear for the average American. Keep in mind the enterovirus D68 which is spreading among children, and has been found in 846 cases in 46 states, and has killed 5 children. That disease, however, is likely to decline with the onset of the flu season.
http://www.cdc.gov/non-polio-enteroviru ... reaks.htmlBut you're note hearing EVD68 and flu in the news, both of which are far more likely to affect an American than Ebola. Yet it's Ebola that the media is hyped about and that many people and organizations are overreacting to. Case in point, this teacher in Maine, who was put on 21 day administrative leave for merely visiting Dallas to attend a conference, due to fears of Ebola.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/10 ... ed-dallas/