As experts (as opposed to President Obama) had warned, the probability of Ebola coming to the US is around 20% by year-end. So it should not be a total surprise that:

*CDC CONFIRMS FIRST EBOLA CASE DIAGNOSED IN THE UNITED STATES

*EBOLA PATIENT IS IN DALLAS HOSPITAL, NEWS 8 REPORTS

The patient recently returned (via plane) from traveling from Liberia, West Africa. This perhaps explains why CDC was "taking precautions in the US" as we noted previously. And don't forget the administration's interference in Ebola treatments.

*CDC SAYS INDIVIDUAL LEFT FROM LIBERIA

*CDC SAYS PERSON WITH EBOLA IN TEXAS LEFT LIBERIA ON SEPT. 19

*CDC SAYS INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPED SYMPTONS ON SEPT. 26

*CDC SAYS U.S. EBOLA PATIENT IS A MALE

*CDC IDENTIFIED ALL PERSONS THAT MAY BE IN CONTACT W/ INDIVIDUAL

*CDC SAYS ALL PERSONS IDENTIFIED ARE MONITORED FOR 21 DAYS

*CDC DIRECTOR SAYS: `I HAVE NO DOUBT WE WILL CONTROL THIS CASE'

*CDC DIRECTOR SAYS: `THERE IS NO DOUBT WE WILL STOP IT HERE'

Press Conference (due to start at 530ET) via NBC News

Press Conference (due to start at 530ET) via CBS Local News

Dallas Live Stream

As Bloomberg reports,

The first Ebola case has been diagnosed in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control said today in a statement. A hospital in Dallas had been testing a person based on their travel history and symptoms, said in a statement earlier today. Another patient was being evaluated at a National Institutes of Health facility. It’s not clear if either patient is the one referred to in the CDC’s initial report.

CDC hosting a media briefing at 5:30pm; participants to include:

CDC Director Thomas Frieden,

Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner David Lakey,

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas Hospital Epidemiologist Edward Goodman,

Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson.

That news explains this from last week..

*CDC SAYS NEED TO SCALE UP EBOLA TREATMENT CENTERS ASAP

*CDC SAYS TAKING PRECAUTIONS IN U.S. AGAINST EBOLA

It appears the term "contained" means a different thing once again.... as we warned here:

There’s a roughly 25 percent chance Ebola will be detected in the United Kingdom– and as much as an 18 percent chance it will turn up in the U.S. – by the end of September, the analysis of global mobility and epidemic patterns shows. The new paper includes the top 16 countries where Ebola is most likely to spread. Though concerning, a spread to Western nations is not the biggest threat. At most, there would be a cluster of a few cases imported to the U.S., probably through air travel. ... “We are at a crucial point,” Vespiginani said. “If the number of cases increases and we are not able to start taming the epidemic, then it will be too late. And then it requires an effort that will be impossible to bring on the ground.”

As we have noted previously (via Michael Snyder):

Even more noteworthy is the fact that the U.S. State Department has just ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits...

The U.S. State Department has ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits for Ebola, prompting concerns that the federal government is anticipating the rapid spread of a virus that has already claimed an unprecedented number of lives. In a press release posted by Market Watch, Lakeland Industries, a manufacturer of industrial protective clothing for first responders, announced that it had signaled its intention “to join the fight against the spread of Ebola” by encouraging other suppliers to meet the huge demand created by the U.S. State Department’s order of 160,000 hazmat suits. “With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health,” states the press release. The huge bulk order of hazmat suits for Ebola has stoked concerns that the U.S. government expects the virus to continue to ravage countries in west Africa and may also be concerned about an outbreak inside the United States.

You don't order that many Hazmat suits unless you are anticipating an outbreak of apocalyptic proportions.

And the CDC has just issued a six page Ebola checklist to hospitals to help them spot potential Ebola patients in America...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning hospitals and doctors that “now is the time to prepare,” has issued a six-page Ebola “checklist” to help healthcare workers quickly determine if patients are infected. While the CDC does not believe that there are new cases of Ebola in the United States, the assumption in the checklist is that it is only a matter of time before the virus hits home.

Let us hope and pray that these precautions do not become necessary.

Because if Ebola starts spreading like wildfire in this country, we are going to see pain and suffering beyond anything that most of us have ever imagined.

Just consider what a health worker on the front lines is seeing on a day to day basis...

I wake up each morning – if I have managed to sleep – wondering if this is really happening, or if it is a horror movie. In decades of humanitarian work I have never witnessed such relentless suffering of fellow human beings or felt so completely paralysed and utterly overwhelmed at our inability to provide anything but the most basic, and sometimes less than adequate, care. I am supervising the suspect tent, which has room for 25 patients who are likely to have Ebola – 80-90% of those we test have the virus. We administer treatment for malaria, start patients on antibiotics, paracetamol, multivitamins, rehydration supplements, food, water and juice while they wait for their results. Sometimes people have arrived too late and die shortly after arriving. In one afternoon last week I watched five seemingly fit, healthy, young men die. I gave the first a bottle of oral rehydration solution and came back with another for the second. In the half a minute or so in which I had been away the first man died, his bottle of water spilt across the floor. The four others followed in quick succession.

Ebola is truly a terrible, terrible disease.

The moment that cases start popping up in the United States, all of our lives will instantly change.

* * *

FYI - here are CDC's contamination centers...

* * *

Wondering who started all this? It was a 2-year old in Guinea...