Poll finds Americans are skeptical that U.S. hospitals can handle Ebola

A new poll from The Associated Press has found that nearly half of Americans don't think their local hospitals "could safely treat an Ebola case." Only 31 percent of respondents, meanwhile, were "moderately confident" their local hospital could handle Ebola.

Roughly 25 percent of respondents, meanwhile, were "very confident" the U.S. healthcare system could "prevent Ebola from spreading widely," and 40 percent were "moderately confident" that it could do so.

But in terms of how America has treated its Ebola patients thus far, Americans expressed less confidence: 42 percent of respondents disapproved of the way Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital handled the case of Thomas Eric Duncan and the two nurses who became infected after treating him. Only 22 percent of respondents approved of how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention handled those cases.

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Americans aren't just concerned about Ebola in the U.S., either — a majority of respondents said the U.S. "should be doing more" to stop the outbreak in West Africa, which has killed at least 4,877 people. However, a quarter of the respondents admitted that they "don't really understand" how Ebola is transmitted.