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OK. There’s lots of partial or misinformation out there. Not that I’m the fount of all knowledge (I’m most definitely NOT), but let’s try to pick this apart in the most logical, factual and reasonable manner possible.

1) Nina Pham is being moved from Dallas Presby to the NIH. The NIH is fully capable of handling a Level 4 patient. She will likely be moved inside of a “spacesuit” like Vinson was when moved to Dallas. That SHOULD result in no further spread of the disease from Ms. Pham - though if she is at the stage of puking her guts up every 10 minutes this becomes “problematic” (IOW, a big f’ing problem). The question of WHY is she being moved is, in my mind, paramount. It could be a morale issue for those at Dallas Presby - though I doubt it, because the CDC doesn’t appear to give a rat’s ass about what anyone thinks about anything. It could be because Dallas Presby is viewed as being utterly incompetent at handling this (great news there, as it is supposed to be a 1st class facility), or because sufficient people have simply refused to take part in her treatment (also not great news...what’s going to happen if Typhoid Vinson infected 30 people, who will take care of them?). Or it could be that she’s taken a turn for the worse and it is viewed as being better for her and everyone else to move her to a truly 1st class facility. I don’t know, and even if there is a presser saying explicitly why, I won’t believe a word. It just is, and NIH is a great facility, period.

2) I really don’t believe that anyone is trying to spread it - more of the crappy decisions in any given situation can be better explained by sheer stupidity than by evil...and the stupidity in DC and elsewhere on this issue have been monumental. Add to that the venality of an administration that simply cannot EVER admit to making a bad decision, and which has to point the finger at someone else, and you have a recipe for a horror show. Oh, and add in 2 other, nakedly political, factors: a) it is less than 3 weeks to a critical election; and b) admitting that we need to guard our border for Ebola would quite naturally mean the same for EV D-68 and a host of other imported diseases...and that further threatens the power of the party in power. Not a recipe for a good ending.

3) As to the number of facilities that can handle Ebola patients safely - I’m not sure that it is even close to 20. I saw a blog article that mentioned 4: The Emory facility (down the road from the CDC) and 3 others (each of which are down the road from biowarfare facilities. I personally have a lot less confidence in ANY other hospitals other than those SPECIFICALLY set up for Level 4 biohazards from Day 1 - there are simply too many points of exposure to the public and to medical professionals when the problem of Level 4 diseases hasn’t been carefully thought about and planned for well in advance of even the construction of the hospital.

In short, no need for conspiracy theories or outright panic right now. NIH can handle this (or so I believe - and if they can’t, we’re all fooked anyway). If these 2 and Duncan are the only Ebola patients that we ever have, we’ll be OK. HOWEVER, given a bit more time, some bad luck and yet more stupidity (and there is a severe glut of very high-quality stupidity hanging over this market), THEN will be the time to panic. You’ll know to up your alert status a notch if another Ebola patient shows up and Frieden isn’t thrown under the bus.

Just my $0.02.