Ebola a few weeks later

Last week there was the issue of Ebola spreading through the Dallas area. I can remember going to lunch in my non hospital environment co-workers were wanting to put on masks to deal with customers out of fear of getting ebola. I would turn on the radio and hear people discussing how President Obama was not on the job for not closing down airports and sending a CDC SWAT team to Dallas.  In the aftermath it seems easier to look at the situation and say what we should have done to make the situation better.

I have been trying to understand how things have come the way they are. I do know that with the advent of technology such as the EMR or electronic health record was supposed to help with preventing a patient as such to have gone through the process that occurred. The patient claimed to go to the hospital after being in the country facing a viral outbreak. Instead of being admitted to the hospital, the patient was turned away with the possibility of  infecting others as well as eventually dying.

The problem is that this infection is very similar to having the flu. The emergency room staff are not always able to discern the effects of foreign illnesses from standard illnesses. Finally after three days the patient is admitted to the hospital.  

The thing that I don't understand is how the CDC was not able to enact any type of security measures to prevent  further spread of the illness. A few weeks ago I found some of the CDC guidelines about dealing with the virus in Africa. The thing was the manual was about 200 pages which half devoted to the appropriate wear and removal of the PPE.

The line from the Executive office is that they do not want to close the borders due to destabilizing emerging countries.

"Everything will be okay... we have the best health system in place"

I can understand why the guy wasn't diagnosed at the beginning 

Why weren't the people that had primary contact with the Ebola patient quarantined?

Days later after patient zero had been admitted to the hospital two nurses involved in patient care tested positive for the Ebola virus. 

As usual the government has been slow to react. I find this troubling considering that the virus is not quite as contagious as some and didn't end up in a city that is densely populated.