Ebola's inevitable arrival on these shores has stirred deep confusion about its risks to the American public. The chaotic range of state-by-state responses from health officials and politicians has added to the commotion. Questions about quarantines are especially troubling as governments try to strike a balance that protects public health without unduly restricting civil liberties.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton's approach, announced early last week, is a sound and reasonable one that follows closely the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). High-risk medical workers who potentially have been exposed to the deadly virus while treating patients in West Africa will be confined to their homes for 21 days upon returning to Minnesota.

All other travelers will be asked to monitor their temperatures, check in with health workers twice each day, keep a log of activities and close contacts, and avoid trips on public transportation lasting more than three hours. Those with known exposure who aren't quarantined will be asked to avoid local transit and mass gatherings altogether.

State health officials describe these 21-day measures as voluntary, although full compliance is expected. They could turn mandatory if conditions change. Or, they could be applied as mandatory if individuals refuse to cooperate.

Whether Minnesota's safeguards are sufficient is a matter for legitimate debate. Other states have taken more aggressive approaches. Most notably, New York and New Jersey have imposed in-home quarantines on all travelers arriving through Kennedy and Liberty airports who have had any contact with Ebola victims in West Africa.

Similar rules have been imposed in Illinois, California, Florida, Connecticut and Georgia, although the most aggressive approach has come from the military. Three-week quarantines will be imposed on all members of the armed forces returning from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, whether or not they had contact with Ebola patients. The Pentagon's program offers no at-home option, instead restricting troops to isolation facilities on military bases without family contact.

There's little doubt that election politics has influenced a number of these decisions, especially in states with close governors' races like Maine, Connecticut, Georgia and Florida. Fear, after all, is a powerful political motivator. To err excessively on the side of caution appeals to voters even though there's no scientific basis for quarantine unless symptoms are present. Best evidence suggests that Ebola is not easily acquired without direct contact with the body fluids of a victim who's in the advanced throes of the disease. Those in the early stages of getting sick are unlikely to spread the virus, experts say. By the time they are contagious, monitoring procedures will have led to their isolation in hospitals.

"Believe me, returning health care workers have every incentive to report the slightest problem during the 21 days," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

One reason, of course, for the excessive caution — and political grandstanding in some states — is the U.S. public health establishment's own hubris and arrogance. Shortly after the CDC assured the public that American hospitals were ready to handle any Ebola cases that came their way, a big Dallas hospital — Texas Health Presbyterian — turned away the nation's first Ebola patient, who later suffered full symptoms and died after infecting two nurses. That fiasco fed a different but equally dangerous epidemic spreading through the American population: steady declines in confidence and in belief in science and institutions.

But stoking cynicism and fear is not the best policy. American health care workers should be encouraged to continue their heroic work in West Africa, and they should be welcomed upon their return. If it's fairly determined that they should be isolated for a time, they should regard quarantine not as punishment but as another selfless act of generosity.

While it's true that science doesn't know everything about Ebola, it knows quite a lot. Dayton and his public health advisers have adopted a prudent policy aimed at respecting the Twin Cities' 30,000 residents with close ties to West Africa and protecting the state as a whole. It's well to remember that, in this vast country, there have been four cases of Ebola, and one death.