The Centers for Disease Control blew it – as anyone in Northeast Ohio knows.

The agency we rely on to handle the science and management of diseases too complicated for us average citizens to mind failed to do the most basic aspect of its job: provide accurate information.

That's why the CDC deserves a good share of the blame for the hysteria that hit like a lake-effect snowstorm Wednesday and left the region under piles of misinformation.

The CDC had been telling us -- and the rest of the country -- for weeks that it has in place protocols to contain the unlikely spread of the Ebola virus in the United States. Yet these protocols clearly have not been fully understood nor followed.

As a result, not one, but two Dallas nurses who cared for a now-deceased Ebola patient from Liberia have tested positive for the virus. And one of those nurses, 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson, traveled to Cleveland last week, before developing symptoms, then tested positive hours after flying back to Dallas on Monday.

So what does the CDC have to say about all of that?

Dr. Tom Frieden, head of CDC, on Wednesday said Vinson should not have been flying within the 21-day-incubation period during which Ebola symptoms can surface. He also said Vinson had no fever symptomatic of the virus when she traveled to Cleveland.

Turns out that Vinson, who visited her family in Akron, had a low-grade fever when she flew back to Dallas through Cleveland. And late Wednesday night, the CDC acknowledged that Vinson had in fact contacted the agency about her fever and her plans to fly home.

Such poor communication and oversight of protocols in Dallas trigger flashes of New Orleans residents suffering in the streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as officials from Federal Emergency Management Agency claimed all was well.

Even as of Thursday, the CDC is not forthcoming about what exactly the agency knew about Vinson's health and what it advised her about traveling to and from Northeast Ohio. (A CDC official said Thursday afternoon that Vinson may have had symptoms as early as Friday.)

Local officials and institutions didn't exactly cover themselves with glory, either.
Do you think Cleveland officials should have addressed the Ebola concern sooner? Do you think it's fair to complain about the CDC's response?

Take Cleveland City Hall, for instance. Frontier Airlines told officials at the city-owned Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at 6 a.m. Wednesday that Vinson had tested positive for the virus after traveling from Cleveland to Dallas. The public first learned this information four hours later, at 10 a.m., and from the Ohio Health Department rather than City Hall.

Mayor Frank Jackson waited until 2 p.m. to hold his first news conference, during which he outlined the city and airport's response. He defended the delay, arguing he wanted to gather accurate information to avoid adding to potential confusion.

Jackson was actually out of town when airport officials learned of Vinson's travel. He was on his way back from a transportation conference in Houston and didn't arrive at the airport until about 10:30 a.m., at which time he was briefed. The CDC – which was managing the dissemination of Vinson news – wasn't immediately available to confirm certain information, says Jackson spokeswoman Maureen Harper. The news conference was further delayed by the CDC's 1 p.m. briefing, she said.

Even so, news no longer waits for any public official. The city had confirmation from the airline and the state. City Hall's decision to wait so long to engage the media potentially delayed the public from getting information about Vinson's travels in the Cleveland and Akron areas and connecting the dots. Furthermore, by the time the mayor stepped to the lectern, he had little new information to add about Vinson. In fact, his officials couldn't even provide Vinson's exact age or much detail about the travel pattern of the plane that carried her.

One reader on cleveland.com chided Jackson for the delay, arguing his decision would be like then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani having waited eight hours to address the 9-11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. That's obviously extreme and unfair. But there is a point in there. Jackson -- or any top official -- should have taken to the Red Room or issued a statement first thing Wednesday morning and reassured the public that Jackson and the city were aware of the CDC's announcement, that the city was prepared and was gathering information about Vinson's travels.

All these missteps collectively have shaken my confidence in the ability of our public agencies -- especially the CDC -- to deal with the rest of the Ebola story. For Wednesday and Thursday were just the beginning of a scare that has a 21-day incubation period.

Right now we are lucky. The only virus with a real foothold is hysteria. We will need far more accurate and timely information if this scare should turn into a real health threat.