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U.S. hospitals are grappling with whether to withhold aggressive treatments from Ebola patients to avoid further exposing doctors and nurses to the virus. Some facilities have decided they will forgo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or may opt not to pursue invasive surgical procedures on deteriorating Ebola patients. Such procedures can expose health workers to bodily fluids that transmit the disease, and hospitals say in many cases have little chance of saving a patient. The decisions are sparking a thorny debate at hospitals across the country and calls for national guidelines. (Armour, 10/31)

Top medical experts studying the spread of Ebola say the public should expect more cases to emerge in the United States by year's end as infected people arrive here from West Africa, including American doctors and nurses returning from the hot zone and people fleeing from the deadly disease. But how many cases? ... This week, several top infectious disease experts ran simulations for The Associated Press that predicted as few as one or two additional infections by the end of 2014 to a worst-case scenario of 130. (Mendoza, 11/1)

When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebola hot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well. ... Even defenders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the agency has hurt the case for trusting scientists, by making overly broad assurances early on, or changing guidelines on handling the disease, indicating that the earlier ones were not strict enough. This comes on top of a broader mistrust of elites. (Perez-Pena, 10/31)

Sen. Rand Paul says the libertarian in him is "horrified" at the forced quarantine of a nurse who returned to the United States after treating Ebola patients in Africa. "The libertarian in me is horrified at indefinitely detaining or detaining anyone without a trial," the Kentucky Republican said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." ... "We have to be very careful of people’s civil liberties, but I’m also not saying government doesn’t have a role in trying to prevent contagion," Paul said, adding he believes the federal government should have instituted some travel restrictions. (Gold, 11/2)

Gov. Chris Christie provided a more detailed explanation of his quarantine policy, which has been criticized by public-health experts but appears to be broadly popular with the general public. New Jersey officials on Friday saiid travelers coming through Newark Liberty International Airport would be categorized into three tiers: high risk, some risk and low risk. Travelers from three Ebola-stricken countries who have fevers will be transported to a hospital for monitoring and tests, as state officials did with nurse Kaci Hickox. Travelers who have been to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia but haven't been in contact with Ebola patients and don't show symptoms wouldn’t be subject to quarantine, but would face 21-day monitoring by local health officials. (Dawsey, 10/31)

But Rubinson, who is director of the critical care resuscitation unit at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, had just spent three weeks working for the World Health Organization at the Kenema Government Hospital, and he knew that a fever was usually the first signal that a person harboring the deadly virus has become infectious. Now, he thought, the moonsuited doctors and nurses looking after him seemed surprised by how sick he was. The needle had provided the virus with an ideal route to invade his body. And if that needle hadn’t infected him, Rubinson found himself wondering, could he have had an earlier exposure that he hadn’t even known about? (Stead Sellers, 11/3)