Natalie DiBlasio

USA TODAY

Authorities pleaded with the public Saturday to be sensitive to those being evaluated for Ebola and not to shun them.

"The people who are being monitored are people just like your family," Dallas Judge Clay Jenkins said at a daily update hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There is a lot of misinformation and erroneous fear. ... The people that are being monitored are real people, too — that need your prayers."

Fear is on the rise across the country as universities and local governments take precaution. The CDC has investigated more than 100 Ebola scares in 33 states in just the first four days of October, the agency said.

In Washington, D.C., two people were hospitalized in isolation units before being declared Ebola-free.

In Marietta, Ga., a Cobb County Jail inmate tested negative for Ebola after displaying flu-like symptoms. Because he had recently traveled to West Africa, he was isolated and given a series of tests.

The CDC ruled out Ebola after a man and his daughter were taken off United Flight 998 at Newark Airport on Saturday by health officials in full hazmat gear.

Meanwhile, the only known Ebola patient on U.S. soil, Thomas Eric Duncan, is in critical condition at an intensive care unit in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. He previously had been listed in "serious but stable" condition.

"He is ill," says David Lakey, commissioner of health at the Texas Department of Health. "Our prayers and our thoughts are with him right now."

Liberian authorities plan to prosecute Duncan when he returns home for allegedly lying on his airport departure screening questionnaire about whether he had had contact with a person infected with the virus. Duncan had helped a sick pregnant woman into a cab — but it is not clear whether he knew she had Ebola.

The family living in the Dallas apartment where Duncan got sick was moved to a private residence in a gated community, and a hazardous-materials crew decontaminated their apartment, city officials said.

The treatment of the family drew criticism when they were quarantined in an apartment with Duncan's contaminated belongings for days before a hazardous materials crew arrived Friday to bag up and sanitize the materials.

Lakey says no additional Ebola cases have been reported, and that all people who have had contact with Duncan have been identified.

Dallas County and CDC epidemiologists narrowed the list of people who may have had contact with Duncan and are being monitored from 114 to 50. Only nine of those contacts are considered high-risk.

The higher-risk contacts are being monitored for fever twice daily. They are not allowed to leave their residence or have visitors.

"None of those individuals have any symptoms at this time," Lakey says, adding that Dallas health officials are making contingency plans.

Ashoka Mukpo, an American freelance video journalist working for NBC News in Liberia, was diagnosed Thursday with Ebola and was being treated in the capital of Monrovia. He was expected to return to the United States this weekend along with the rest of the news crew.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can be spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who is showing symptoms.

About 230 U.S. troops have been deployed for the Ebola mission, mostly in Liberia. About two dozen are in Senegal setting up a transportation center. The Army will send 3,200 soldiers from various units around the country, including 1,800 from Fort Campbell, Ky., who will arrive later this month.

The CDC is working in infected countries to perform airport exit screening, CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a daily update on Saturday. So far, 77 people have not boarded airplanes due to the screening process that looks for fever or obvious symptoms, he says.

"The first case of Ebola is obviously scary and unprecedented," Frieden said. "I know there have been a lot of concerns about the process of monitoring people when they come into this country. Our number one priority is the safety of Americans."

Contributing: The Associated Press; WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth