Federal health care officials have sent mixed messages to the public about the Ebola crisis — flip-flopping on the preparedness of hospitals and posing contradictory scenarios in which the virus can be transmitted.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said yesterday during a teleconference that you can’t get the virus by sitting next to someone on a bus, but an infected person shouldn’t take public transportation because they could transmit the disease.

“If you are sick and you may have Ebola, should you get on a bus? And the answer to that is also no,” Frieden said. “You might become ill, and you might have a problem that exposes someone around you.”

Earlier in the conversation, however, he said you “cannot get (Ebola) through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.”

On Oct. 2, Frieden said “any hospital in the country can take care of Ebola. You don’t need a special hospital room to do it.”

However, on Tuesday he changed his tune when referring to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital — where two nurses have contracted the virus after tending to Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died at the Dallas hospital.

“We could’ve sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands-on with the hospital from day one about exactly how this should be managed,” Frieden said Tuesday.

A Harvard specialist said the failings of the Dallas hospital in treating Duncan and protecting the nurses shows that there are serious problems that need to be addressed quickly.

“We need an adult in the room at this hospital to handle this situation,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute. “Once the first nurse came down with the infection, you have to say to the rest of the staff that they’re going to be closely monitored.”

Herald wire services contributed to this report.