Just this week, the CDC changed its recommendations on the protective gear that facilities should have for their staffs. It also lowered the temperature threshold that should trigger a provider’s suspicion of possible Ebola.

“We’re really learning on the fly,” said Jonathan Zenilman, chief of the infectious disease department at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. “There are a lot of people who want certainty. That doesn’t exist right now.”…

“Everyone tends to deal with what’s immediately at hand,” said Jesse Goodman, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington. And given the initial missteps with Duncan’s diagnosis, which raised fears that people in the community had been put in danger, “that was the first concern and where people focused.”

The developments this week, however, reveal clearly who is in most danger. It’s similar to what has played out with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Goodman noted. Health care workers are at greatest risk. “Routine contacts are not that likely to spread the disease,” he said.