ATLANTA — New federal Ebola response squads – likened to public health SWAT teams – are being readied to rush to any U.S. city where a new Ebola case might be identified, officials say.

Meanwhile, the government has formed a second set of teams to prepare hospitals in cities deemed most likely to see a new Ebola case, should one turn up. Three of those teams have already been sent out.

Last week, President Obama announced a push for a faster federal reaction.

“We want a rapid response team, a SWAT team essentially, from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible, hopefully within 24 hours, so that they are taking the local hospital step by step through what needs to be done,” he said.

Here is a brief rundown on the government’s plans:

CERT TEAMS

The CDC has developed two sets of teams, identified by the acronyms CERT and FAST. The CERTs – for CDC Ebola Response Teams – are to be made up of 10-20 people, who can be sent to a hospital right after a new case of Ebola is lab-confirmed, or even before confirmation, if health officials believe a person is very likely to be infected.

They are drawn from a list of roughly 100 CDC workers and others, scattered across the country.

No CERT team has been deployed yet but the 20 or so people at the top of the list are on standby, with bags packed.

FAST TEAMS

Three FAST teams were assembled last week. These are smaller, preparatory teams: FAST stands for Facility Assessment and Support Teams.

They are involved in checking out hospitals that have volunteered to handle Ebola cases, making sure they are ready to handle everything from the first encounter with a patient to the disposal of Ebola-infected medical waste.

HOSPITALS

The government is trying to identify up to 20 hospitals around the country that are designated Ebola referral centers.

An emphasis has been on reviewing hospitals in the five cities with airports where all travelers from West Africa are now being funneled. The FAST teams have already been sent to three of them – New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. The other two cities are Atlanta and Newark.

The government hopes to release a list of primary Ebola hospitals in those five cities this week, CDC officials said.

Meanwhile, federal, state or local officials have already named some hospitals.

CDC officials confirmed that one is Emory University Hospital in Atlanta – which already has been treating Ebola patients.

In Chicago, local health officials this week said four leading hospitals have agreed to handle Ebola patients.

New York state officials have said they have designated eight hospitals to handle patients diagnosed with Ebola.

OTHER TEAMS

On Sunday, the Pentagon said it’s building a 30-person medical support team that could go to help civilian hospitals deal with a future appearance of Ebola.

The team is to include 20 critical care nurses, five doctors trained in infectious disease, and five trainers in infectious disease protocols.

The military team has a different orientation – they’ll be there to provide medical care if a hospital needs more hands. The CERT teams are not there to care for patients.

They would be involved in testing, coordinating communications with the public, ensuring that hospital workers are properly protected, and helping to track down people an infected person was in contact with, explained Dr. John T. Brooks, a CDC official who oversees the teams.

The CDC also has teams in Ohio and Texas working on Ebola, Brooks said. They are not FAST or CERT teams.

They were sent to help officials in those states to help track and prepare for potential cases related to Duncan or to a nurse who treated him and traveled to the Cleveland area.

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