It's interesting that the writer compares the Ebola experience to the early days of HIV/AIDS. "Striking parallels," he says. I say it's interesting because as a blood-borne disease, HIV is even harder to spread than Ebola, and yet it eventually turned into a pandemic and global scourge that has haunted (hunted?) all of us for the past 35 years. Even HIV/AIDS started small. I'm not making any predictions about Ebola, but it's hubris to say with certainty that Ebola will not be a big problem in the US. Maybe not this particular outbreak, but who knows, down the line?

That said, there were definitely mistakes and regrets back then, and we're repeating many of them now, and that's not a good thing.