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there was a scaling up and tightening up of the screening. The new regulations indicate that from now on, the only ports of entry to the United States will be the five airports mentioned above in order to eliminate the possibility of "slipping through" of the 6% of travelers who might go to other airports. In addition there will be active monitoring of everyone entering from West Africa, which means that these individuals will have to give e-mail address, contact information, phone numbers and their travel plans. They must actively report each day to a public health official. Failure to do so would result in arrest and prosecution. As we can see things are getting tighter and tighter. In multiple conversations that I have had with Sylvia Burwell and Leslie Dach, it has become clear if there is another slip up such as a person getting through from West Africa with undetected Ebola, this would create a crisis of confidence whereby the Congress would likely pressure even more the president to close the borders completely. As stated several times, we feel that closing the borders would have an ultimate deleterious effect on controlling the epidemic. The reasons we give is that if we close the borders people will find indirect ways to get into the country and it would be more difficult to track them. In addition it would have serious negative economic consequences on the country and would therefore hinder their capability of being able to control their own epidemic which might ultimately lead to collapse of the structure of the country and spread to other West African countries. We repeat what we have said many times that the best way to protect Americans from Ebola is to suppress the epidemic at its source in West Africa. I went over to see and her family including sister Kathy and mother Diane in our special clinical studies unit at around 6:30 PM. As I have done every day, I was accompanied by Rick Davey and Cliff Lane. has had four consecutive negative PCRs and so we made the decision to move her out of the strict isolation room and put her in a room where there was no need for contact isolation. In other words and we could wear regular clothes and visit her. Also, her dog Bentley had been shown to be PCR negative at USAMRIID. On a visit tonight we began to plan her discharge exit from the hospital and discussed just what course we would take regarding public announcements and a press conference. I emphasized to and her family that the choice was entirely up to her and that we would help her to implement any decision that she makes. She is leaning towards making a public announcement in front of the Clinical Center and having a written statement that she reads and that she does not answer any questions. Hopefully we will discharge her on Friday, 24 October.