I guess what I'm getting at is that, especially at this stage of the game, I expect errors like this. Doctors and nurses are going to make mistakes, no matter

I guess what I'm getting at is that, especially at this stage of the game, I expect errors like this. Doctors and nurses are going to make mistakes, no matter what sort of organization they're in, humans and their ailments are complicated. That's why malpractice is almost always a civil, not criminal matter. The problem here is that with Ebola, the consequences of making what would often be a minor and correctable mistake are uniquely grave. For that matter, an early Ebola diagnosis currently hinges on the patient's self-reported travel and Ebola exposure history. These screening criteria will completely miss 2nd stage (? what's the term for this) infections when the patient doesn't know he had been exposed to someone who'd been to West Africa, or some place else it will hit in due course. Until the patient gets much worse and a lot more infective, with the same grave consequences. If we get enough primary Ebola infections in the US this appears to be certain to happen. When was the last time our medical system had to deal with something like this? Pre-antibiotic, I would think. Nothing comes to mind, only partial analogues. I've got a pretty good layman's background in medicine from nurses and doctors close to me when I was growing up, and serious study of biology and chemistry, plus paying above average attention to the big events like this. I.e. I can read the Merck Manual and other secondary and primary sources etc. without frequent recourse to a medical dictionary. I think we have reasons to be worried, as outlined in my postings and the obvious extrapolations.