Dallas, Texas (CNN) -- A Dallas apartment where the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States had stayed is finally getting a thorough cleaning, days after the diagnosis left four people quarantined there with soiled towels and sweat-stained sheets from the Ebola patient.
After some delays, the first of three phases to clean the apartment began Friday afternoon. While the process will take days, at least sheets and towels that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan used have been removed.
Also out are the four people -- the partner of the Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, her 13-year-old son and her two 20-something nephews -- who'd been stuck there for days.
They had been ordered to stay inside the apartment until October 19. By that point, enough time should have passed to determine if any of them contracted Ebola or if they're in the clear.
Judge Clay Jenkins, director of the county's Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Friday that Duncan's partner slept last night on a couch pillow on the living room floor. But now she and the others have a new place to call home in the meantime: a private 4-bedroom residence in Dallas, which was arranged with the help of someone in the local faith-based community.
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"They were very glad to be going and very pleased when they got there," Jenkins said. "(One of them) got a big grin on his face, and he said, 'I wish somebody would get me a basketball.' So we're going to see if we can't take care of that."
The move added to a busy day for the quartet, who until then had gotten little more than brief stops from a health official and were told not to go more than a few steps outside. On Friday, they were visited by a hazardous materials team wearing masks, boots and yellow protective gear, as seen in photos tweeted by Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed. A large tarp was laid out, and several oil-drum like containers were on site.
Some have criticized the fact that it took so long to start the process, given that health officials announced three days ago that Duncan had Ebola. At that time, four people Duncan had stayed with in the Texas city were ordered not to leave the apartment because of possible lingering effects of Duncan, from his clothes to toilets to silverware.
Additionally, the Dallas hospital where Duncan is being treated has come under fire for how it handled his first visit there eight days ago.
Duncan's partner, identified only as Louise, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that hospital medical staff were twice told that Duncan, who was suffering with fever and abdominal pain, had recently arrived from West Africa -- key information that could have been a tipoff for Ebola, yet was never properly relayed. Instead, he was released with an antibiotic only to come back by ambulance even sicker on Sunday.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged to reporters Friday that "there were missteps" in Dallas as to how Duncan's case was initially treated. But he also insisted that "there were a lot of things that went right and are going right."
And Fauci stressed that, while there may be a case here and there, what's happened with Ebola in West Africa -- where more than 3,400 people have died and public health infrastructures have become overwhelmed -- won't happen in the United States.
"Our health care infrastructure in the United States is well-equipped to stop Ebola in its tracks," Fauci said.
Official: 50 being monitored
Until this week, Ebola's impact on the United States has been confined to preemptive measures at airports and elsewhere to stop its spread, the deployment of U.S. military and other resources to West Africa to help corral the outbreak there, and the treatment of a select few Americans who contacted the virus in Africa and were flown back home to get well.
But Duncan changed all that.
He landed in Dallas on September 20, started feeling sick days later, then made his initial visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital late on September 25. He went back three days later and was quickly isolated, with a blood test confirmed he had Ebola on Tuesday.
If he gets healthy, Duncan could be in trouble: Some in Liberia have accused him of lying on a pre-flight questionnaire about his contact with Ebola sufferers, leading to threats of charges by authorities there and prompting the Dallas County district attorney's office to announce it is "looking into whether or not (he) knowingly and intentionally exposed the public to a deadly virus -- making this a criminal matter."
For now, though, any future legal battles are overshadowed by Duncan's fight for his life -- in isolation, in serious condition, at Texas Health Presbyterian.
No one he'd come in contact with has shown symptoms of Ebola, though officials were watching them -- 50 people in all -- just in case.
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These 50 are people Duncan came in contact with while he was contagious. Monitoring means a public health worker visits the contacts twice a day to take temperatures and to ask if they are experiencing any symptoms.
Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC said officials are casting a wide net.
"We have a low level of concern about the vast majority of these people that we're following," she said.
That sentiment was echoed Friday night by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who pointed out "there is only one person" -- Duncan, who is in isolated in a hospital -- "that is actively showing" signs of Ebola. Only those showing symptoms of Ebola are contagious.
"We're a little anxious, but there is no fear in our eyes," Rawlings said of local residents. "We will be safe, and we will get this done in the appropriate way."
Ebola in spotlight elsewhere in U.S.
Duncan isn't the only person being talked about in the United States with real or possible Ebola.
Howard University Hospital in Washington has admitted a low-risk patient with symptoms "that could be associated with Ebola," hospital spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton said Friday. The patient, who was not named, recently traveled to Nigeria and presented with the symptoms upon his or her return, she said. The patient is in stable condition.
"In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient," Hamilton said. "Our medical team continues to evaluate and monitor progress in close collaboration with the CDC and the Department of Health."
Officials in Georgia also said they isolated a man with flu-like symptoms who'd recently been in Africa shortly after his arrest early Friday for suspected drunken driving. But "so far all of his labwork is negative" and "we have no reason to believe that he has Ebola," Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald said.
But there is one American confirmed with the virus: Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for NBC News who was diagnosed in Monrovia on Thursday
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Dr. Mitchell Levy said his son, Mukpo, remembers getting some fluid in his face while helping to disinfect a chair inside a clinic where he was filming.
Mukpo, 33, a freelance cameraman for NBC News, started feeling achy and tired Wednesday, and he quarantined himself. A day later, a test at a Doctors Without Borders facility in Monrovia confirmed that he had Ebola. NBC News has said the entire team will return to the U.S. soon aboard a private charter plane.
Levy said that his son will be heading to Nebraska Medical Center, which is the same facility where Dr. Rick Sacra was recently treated.
Official: U.S. focusing on 'source countries'
As intense as the media attention is in the United States, the issues here are nothing compared to West Africa, where Ebola continues to spread through the living and the dead and where health facilities have often been unable to keep up with the outbreak.
The U.S. government has been involved in trying to help countries like Liberia, with more help possibly on its way.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. military could send as many as 4,000 troops to the Ebola-afflicted countries. About 200 U.S. troops are there now, and Washington had previously committed to sending 3,000 troops.
The U.S. troops will not treat patients, but will help establish health facilities and medical treatment units "so that the health care workers can do their jobs," Kirby said.
Paying attention to West Africa, whether it's getting Ebola patients well there or doing things to prevent infected people from leaving the country, is a national security priority for the United States, said Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.
Monaco said Friday: "We are taking steps to address the source, the people coming from the source counties and we think those are the most effective steps we can take."
CNN's Chris Welch reported from Dallas, and CNN's Greg Botelho and Jacque Wilson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Devon Sayers, Noah Gray, Dave Alsup and Kate Hinman contributed to this report.
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Health workers in Monrovia, Liberia, cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on Friday, October 31. Health officials say the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the deadliest ever. More than 4,900 people have died there, according to the World Health Organization.
Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on Thursday, October 30. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities want her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who has twice tested negative for Ebola, has said she will defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home.
Crew members at an airport in Accra, Ghana, unload supplies sent from China on Wednesday, October 29.
Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Tuesday, October 28.
Amber Vinson, one of the two Dallas nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola, embraces Emory University Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Bruce Ribner after being discharged from the Atlanta hospital on October 28. Vinson and the other nurse, Nina Pham, have both been declared Ebola-free.
Hickox sent CNN this image of the tent where she was initially being isolated for Ebola monitoring Sunday, October 26, in New Jersey. Hospital officials told CNN the indoor tent was in a climate-controlled extended-care facility adjacent to a hospital.
U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, October 24. Pham, one of the two Dallas nurses who were diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
Police officers on Thursday, October 23, stand outside the New York City apartment of Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned from West Africa and tested positive for Ebola.
Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on Tuesday, October 21.
RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, talks to reporters in Sacramento, California, after meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown to discuss the Ebola crisis on October 21.
Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on Monday, October 20.
Christine Wade, a registered nurse at the University of Texas Medical Branch, greets Carnival Magic passengers disembarking in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, October 19. Nurses met passengers with Ebola virus fact sheets and were available to answer any questions. A Dallas health care worker was in voluntary isolation aboard the cruise ship because of her potential contact with the Ebola virus. She had shown no signs of the disease, however.
Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on Saturday, October 18, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola.
An airplane carrying Nina Pham arrives at an airport in Frederick, Maryland, on Thursday, October 16. Pham is one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Duncan. Pham was sent to Maryland to be treated at a National Institutes of Health hospital, and she was declared Ebola-free several days later.
Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on Wednesday, October 15.
Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15 in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the media about Ebola during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on October 15. Obama said his administration will respond to new Ebola cases "in a much more aggressive way," taking charge of the issue after the second Texas nurse was diagnosed with the disease.
A U.S. Marine looks out from an MV-22 Osprey aircraft before landing at the site of an Ebola treatment center under construction in Tubmanburg on October 15. It is the first of 17 Ebola treatment centers to be built by Liberian army soldiers and American troops as part of the U.S. response to the epidemic.
A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment where one of the infected nurses resides on Sunday, October 12.
Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12.
A member of the Liberian army stands near a U.S. aircraft Saturday, October 11, in Tubmanburg.
A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation Friday, October 10, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives.
Ebola survivor Joseph Yensy prepares to be discharged from the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Paynesville, Liberia, on Sunday, October 5.
Sanitized boots dry at the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Paynesville on October 5.
Residents of an Ebola-affected township take home kits distributed by Doctors Without Borders on Saturday, October 4, in New Kru Town, Liberia. The kits, which include buckets, soap, gloves, anti-contamination gowns, plastic bags, a spray bottle and masks, are meant to give people some level of protection if a family member becomes sick.
A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on Friday, October 3.
A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on Thursday, October 2, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward.
Marie Nyan, whose mother died of Ebola, carries her 2-year-old son, Nathaniel Edward, to an ambulance in the Liberian village of Freeman Reserve on Tuesday, September 30.
A health official uses a thermometer Monday, September 29, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria.
Children pray during Sunday service at the Bridgeway Baptist Church in Monrovia on Sunday, September 28.
Residents of the St. Paul Bridge neighborhood in Monrovia take a man suspected of having Ebola to a clinic on September 28.
Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28.
Medical staff members at the Doctors Without Borders facility in Monrovia burn clothes belonging to Ebola patients on Saturday, September 27.
A health worker in Freetown, Sierra Leone, sprays disinfectant around the area where a man sits before loading him into an ambulance on Wednesday, September 24.
Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on Monday, September 22.
A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on Sunday, September 21. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes.
Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, September 20. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations.
A child stops on a Monrovia street Friday, September 12, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola.
Health workers on Wednesday, September 10, carry the body of a woman who they suspect died from the Ebola virus in Monrovia.
A woman in Monrovia carries the belongings of her husband, who died after he was infected by the Ebola virus.
Health workers in Monrovia place a corpse into a body bag on Thursday, September 4.
After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on Wednesday, September 3.
Crowds cheer and celebrate in the streets Saturday, August 30, after Liberian authorities reopened the West Point slum in Monrovia. The military had been enforcing a quarantine on West Point, fearing a spread of the Ebola virus.
A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on Friday, August 29.
Volunteers working with the bodies of Ebola victims in Kenema, Sierra Leone, sterilize their uniforms on Sunday, August 24.
A guard stands at a checkpoint Saturday, August 23, between the quarantined cities of Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone.
A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on Friday, August 22.
Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on Thursday, August 21, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus.
Family members of West Point district commissioner Miata Flowers flee the slum in Monrovia while being escorted by the Ebola Task Force on Wednesday, August 20.
An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20.
Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on Tuesday, August 19. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center.
A burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home near Monrovia on Sunday, August 17.
lija Siafa, 6, stands in the rain with his 10-year-old sister, Josephine, while waiting outside Doctors Without Borders' Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on August 17. The newly built facility will initially have 120 beds, making it the largest-ever facility for Ebola treatment and isolation.
Brett Adamson, a staff member from Doctors Without Borders, hands out water to sick Liberians hoping to enter the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.
Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.
A body, reportedly a victim of Ebola, lies on a street corner in Monrovia on Saturday, August 16.
Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.
A crowd enters the grounds of an Ebola isolation center in the West Point slum on August 16. The mob was reportedly shouting, "No Ebola in West Point."
A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward Friday, August 15, in Monrovia.
A boy tries to prepare his father before they are taken to an Ebola isolation ward August 15 in Monrovia.
Kenyan health officials take passengers' temperature as they arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Thursday, August 14, in Nairobi, Kenya.
A hearse carries the coffin of Spanish priest Miguel Pajares after he died at a Madrid hospital on Tuesday, August 12. Pajares, 75, contracted Ebola while he was working as a missionary in Liberia.
Health workers in Kenema screen people for the Ebola virus on Saturday, August 9, before they enter the Kenema Government Hospital.
Paramedics in protective suits move Pajares, the infected Spanish priest, at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid on Thursday, August 7. He died five days later.
Nurses carry the body of an Ebola victim from a house outside Monrovia on Wednesday, August 6.
A Nigerian health official wears protective gear August 6 at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sit in on a conference call about Ebola with CDC team members deployed in West Africa on Tuesday, August 5.
Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country.
Nigerian health officials are on hand to screen passengers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport on Monday, August 4.
Nurses wearing protective clothing are sprayed with disinfectant Friday, August 1, in Monrovia after they prepared the bodies of Ebola victims for burial.
A nurse disinfects the waiting area at the ELWA Hospital in Monrovia on Monday, July 28.
In this photo provided by Samaritan's Purse, Dr. Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient in Monrovia. On July 26, the North Carolina-based group said Brantly tested positive for the disease. Days later, Brantly arrived in Georgia to be treated at an Atlanta hospital, becoming the first Ebola patient to knowingly be treated in the United States.
A doctor puts on protective gear at the treatment center in Kailahun on Sunday, July 20.
Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20.
Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20.
Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on Friday, July 18.
Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18.
A doctor works in the field laboratory at the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on Thursday, July 17.
Doctors Without Borders staff prepare to enter the isolation ward at an Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 17.
Dr. Mohamed Vandi of the Kenema Government Hospital trains community volunteers who will aim to educate people about Ebola in Sierra Leone.
A woman has her temperature taken at a screening checkpoint on the road out of Kenema on Wednesday, July 9.
A member of Doctors Without Borders puts on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry on Saturday, June 28.
Airport employees check passengers in Conakry before they leave the country on Thursday, April 10.
A Guinea-Bissau customs official watches arrivals from Conakry on Tuesday, April 8.
Egidia Almeida, a nurse in Guinea-Bissau, scans a Guinean citizen coming from Conakry on April 8.
A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus Thursday, April 3, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea.
Health specialists work Monday, March 31, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea.
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