I absolutely believe that medical workers in the US that have potential exposure should be very careful about what they are doing (both people traveling back from West Africa and people involved in treatment at US hospitals). The various institutions involved should be helping with this (the hospitals, city, state, federal agencies).
That doesn't mean chickens need to start running at axes the second a known case is identified and isolated.
"That doesn't mean chickens need to start running at axes the second a known case is identified and isolated."
Which is being advocated by precisely who?
My major theme here is that people, and most especially "authorities" should not be lying, e.g. not making absolute statements about things which aren't. So fat that that has resulted in a constantly changing the party line as preceding versions have turned out to be lies. But there's worse, in the most brazen example I know of, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/cdc-you-ca... contradicting yourself in consecutive sentences.
You want "panic"? Convince the American people the authorities responsible for keeping us from getting an epidemic of Biblical proportions are systematically, even routinely lying to us. We're well along the road to that.
The harsh reading given to Frieden's statements in that video is exactly what I mean by chickens running at axes.
He wasn't very clear there. But the CDC statements have been reasonably consistent and clear, especially in the face of the ridiculous questions they get from reporters. A softer reading is that transmission from an asymptomatic person who is later found to be infected is not believed to be possible at the time they are asymptomatic. Health workers with exposure should still, out of an abundance of cation, avoid contact with large groups of hard to trace people.
That doesn't mean chickens need to start running at axes the second a known case is identified and isolated.