It is not. Sorry, $6B annual budget is not a lot in the context of their responsibility, which is substantially greater than ebola [edit: or even outbreak containment in general, for that matter]. In fact, ebola (as evidenced by the lack of transmission to Duncan's own family or any additional caregivers of his [edit: not to mention a lack of host reservoir in NA]) probably and appropriately very low on the CDC's radar, since it is _not_ a public health threat in the US.
late edit: To put it in perspective, approximately $3B was the total operating expenses for just Massachusetts General Hospital, alone, in 2012. Or just 50% greater than the 2014 budget for UCSF. Or just half of what Apple spent on SG&A in the 12 months prior to Sept 27.
Then my point is even more important given the proportion of it actually spent on infectious diseases. If that's so allfired important than why were they doing anything else with that money?
The answer, of course, is that it wasn't considered so important until a couple of months ago, and thus, it wouldn't matter how much money was thrown at them, it wouldn't have solved the fundamental priority problem.
Contra to some of the press, I took the time to read the CDC's summary budget from the government's website. It wasn't hard to find ("Center for Disease Control" budget). It's full of things that sound superficially wonderful, but none of it matters if it's being spent incompetently or with priorities not connected to the real world, and throwing "more" at such an organization is not a good investment.
You can't get away from it. It isn't about more, it's also about what. What matters a lot. Again, I'd be less vocal about not just handing the government more if the advocates of more would pay more attention... much more attention... to what, and how well. But I can't help but notice the advocates of "more" seem to consider that an attack, when in all seriousness they really ought to be leading the charge. If you are an advocate of giving the government more, shouldn't you consider it very important to your own position that what the government already has be used well? You give away an enormous weapon when you leave it solely to your opponents to point out problems!
I am not trying to be difficult, but I don't understand your point. Ebola is a vanishingly unimportant concern as far as infectious diseases go. This current "outbreak" has resulted in 2 transmissions in the US to date. The reason it appears that the system failed is that the system correctly reacted to a low value threat, but it was amplified into a hysteria because of dynamics in media economics and US political cycles.
If I were the CDC, I'd be spending a boatload on SARS, MERS, MERSA, MDR/XDR TB, any number of the highly virulent seasonal influenza strains, social programs to promote vaccinations (pertussis, for example, kills more babies in the US annually than there have been total US cases of Ebola), annual rabies tracking programs, general education (good hygiene practices)... so many others. And the good news is they are doing this, as I'm sure your research into their budget shows.
edit: thus the downvoter exemplifies the problem, without saying a single word.
OK, I'll down vote you and explain why: your studied inability or unwillingness to do math, to whit, what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment (or village/small town ones different than the former locations of outbreaks), specifically double the number of infections approximately every 3 weeks.
Right now this Ebola outbreak gives every sign of having the potential to be the most significant public health event in a number of centuries. Like, maybe we'll end up having to go back to the 1346–1350 Black Death for comparison, unless we can develop, test, produce and distribute a vaccine very quickly.
The CDC's worst case, last I heard, was 1.4 total million infected with Ebola in January. At the current estimate of 70% lethality, there's your 1M million people 10-16 days after infection.
Then it all doubles in 3 weeks. And another 3 weeks.
Do the math.
If you want to be conservative, dial the starting point back, it won't matter for long. But when I did my own calculations, I found 20,000 cases as of a week or two ago (a fairly conservative guess at the true number) would get you to 1.4 million in January.
> The CDC's worst case, last I heard, was 1.4 total million infected with Ebola in January.
That was a "no new action" estimate in late September based on data through late August [1]. There has been considerable new action since late August (in part based on the report, or, to the extent that the action in some cases preceded the report, at least an understanding of the general principles behind it.)
Your assumption for those numbers is that it will keep doubling everywhere it goes, correct? For example, Nigeria seems to have stamped it out in Lagos, refuting the idea that it automatically breaks out exponentially in "3rd World urban environments".
"what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment"
Nowhere did I say or ever imply that it "automatically breaks out exponentially" in such environments, just that in this outbreak, it has, and I would hope you would not deny it could in others.
At some point, the danger of handling the bodies of those who die of Ebola will sink into the public consciousness there. The worst case scenario assumes no modification of burial practices.
Note that the article dragonwriter linked says safe burials would have the outbreak ending soon after January:
If, by late December 2014, approximately 70% of patients were placed either in ETUs or home or in a community setting such that there is a reduced risk for disease transmission (including safe burial when needed), then the epidemic in both countries would almost be ended by January 20, 2015
Indeed, there can and eventually inevitably will be changes that decrease R-nought, presumably below 1 where it will then "burn out". Eventually the afflicted region(s) will be decided into those whose behaviors, for whatever reason, do not divided transmission, and those that do, with the latter containing a few survivors (of the myriad other things that kill weakened people as well as of Ebola).
But I'm pretty sure we don't know all that's going on with this outbreak in non-village settings, how mobility of people in this Western region vs. the prior outbreaks in Central Africa is affecting things, how ingrained these burial practices are, etc. We hypothesize, but only time will tell which, if any of these are correct.
However, one of the things I'm concerned about is what happens if or when it hits Latin America, which would then have very direct consequences on the US.
The response to Ebola vs. the other things isn't that different. I see no reason to believe the CDC is caught flatfooted by "Ebola", which is indeed as you say a relatively minor issue that one could almost consider a practice warmup for the "real thing", but will suddenly be a well-oiled machine when the real crisis hits. That is not how human organizations work.
If the CDC is suddenly able to handle Spanish-Influenza-Bird-Flu-2015 with stunning competence, it will only be because we got lucky and got a wakeup call with our complete unpreparedness for and blithering incompetence with Ebola.
Unless, of course, enough people keep covering for the CDC because by golly, they're government so of course they're competent, ignore your lying eyes, in which case we will learn nothing and have the same CDC when the real crisis hits. And next time, it probably won't be Ebola. (Unless someone somewhere gets the bright idea of just how much havoc they could wreak with a simple trip through New York via Liberia... which will be vicious anti-government smearing right-wingnut fear mongering right up until the moment it happens....)
For someone talking about "Vanishingly unimportant concerns" to then go on about SARS, which has caused zero transmissions in years and never reached the point the current Ebola outbreak has reached is...curious.
late edit: To put it in perspective, approximately $3B was the total operating expenses for just Massachusetts General Hospital, alone, in 2012. Or just 50% greater than the 2014 budget for UCSF. Or just half of what Apple spent on SG&A in the 12 months prior to Sept 27.