Despite errors, Ebola fails to spread here: Our view

The battle to contain Ebola has not been pretty.

The developed world let the disease fester in West Africa until it became a global threat, and when — inevitably — the first case arrived in the United States, it was greeted with a disturbing mix of incompetence and panic.

Patient Zero was turned away from a Dallas emergency room and sent home to spread the disease. When he returned much sicker, two nurses were infected because procedures were unsafe. One traveled and flew back to Dallas with a fever, despite the obvious risk — incredibly, with the permission of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose once-sterling reputation has been tarnished by its handling of the crisis.

Then to put a cherry on top, a couple of grandstanding governors, who should be showing the cool-headed leadership the nation saw after 9/11, sought to look decisive by imposing poorly thought-out quarantines. They looked jittery, instead. Not to be outdone, the first person quarantined, nurse Kaci Hickox, arrogantly insisted that only she has the right to judge whether she poses a threat. Obviously, there is ample middle ground.

The whole train of events is embarrassing. But there is another way to look at it as well.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong; the virus was given every chance to spread. Yet it has not.

Not on the Dallas nurse's flight. Not among the 50 or so family, friends and community contacts of the first patient, Thomas Duncan. Not even Duncan's fiancée got sick. As of this writing, two nurses who took care of the critically ill Duncan are the only people who have contracted Ebola in the U.S., and they've been cured.

It would be naive to conclude that this means the virus has been beaten. But it's also hard to avoid the conclusion that it is both less contagious and less deadly than initially feared, given Western medical care.

Further encouragement comes from the way hospitals and the CDC have learned from their mistakes. New York is an example. Eight hospitals have been designated to treat Ebola. Workers have drilled. ER testers posing as Ebola patients have checked readiness. Similar preparation is going on elsewhere.

Screening and monitoring at airports is also improving.

This is a familiar pattern in crisis — personal or national. You're knocked off balance. You learn from your mistakes. You adapt.

But one piece of the adjustment — the most important — is still dangerously incomplete. The disease continues to rage out of control in West Africa.

The right things are belatedly happening. Clinics are being built. Major donors have stepped up. Liberia is reporting a slowing of transmission. But there are still dire shortages of health care workers, beds and supplies to contain the disease, which must be tamed at its source for actions here to have meaning.

The U.S. is committing medical and military resources, and other countries are donating as well. But the domestic Ebola scare is getting in the way by discouraging volunteers. The sooner fear gives way to facts, the more likely it is that the threat will be stopped far, far away.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.