This article makes it pretty clear how indoctrinated missionaries are and how plain stupid and uneducated.

Okay boys, you wanna stay?
You don't know what the hell sick is.
You can tell us all about it when 1 or 2 of you make it home for your homecomings. The rest of you will be in body bags.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=30993084&nid=148&title=lds-missionary-offers-perspective-on-ebola-crisis&fm=home_page&s_cid=topstory

Oh wait, that is only if the bodies are allowed into the US.

I wonder if the missionaries in Africa know they feel this way? I mean a PR parlor trick like this article is one thing, but them being forced to stay unbeknownst to friends and family are quite another.

Then how did that doctor with it get back into the USA?

Very very carefully with the strictest of isolation techniques. There are only 4 isolation units in the US that are qualified to take patients with this level of disease.
According to one news source the (?untested) anti-ebola medication was given to the patients before the flight to Atlanta.

There was the argument from many experts who said they should not come back to the US.

Was it the same for the us nurse that got it as well?? Does the know how deadly this is!!??

Yes, I am sure the nurse knew. Interesting thing is the doctor starting feeling much better after only one IV administration of the serum. The nurse needed two doses before she started feeling better.

That's very promising news.

They think God's gonna protect because they are missionaries, maybe?

Ironic then how they are surrounded by people God is failing to protect.

But we all have our own trials... i suppose.

The probable fact that the LDS missionaries there may not realize the real danger (or that they are being kept from that information...or that they are being thought-stopped, and not allowed to think about honorably exiting whatever countries they are in) really upsets me.

If they are not being given full information...or if the real message being conveyed to them is that they "should" stay...this is--in my opinion--near criminal.

There shouldn't BE any LDS missionaries in any area which is either active-Ebola, or is medically assumed to be on the reasonable Ebola path through the continent.

As I understand it, this includes a very large part of the continent at this present minute. News stories yesterday said that the World Health Organization announced that Ebola there is on the tipping point of going out of control---and this was YESTERDAY.

There should be NO LDS missionaries there today!!!

All LDS missionaries in the affected areas should have been evacuated either prior to yesterday, or they should be at the proper airport right now this minute awaiting the next available seat out of the area--even if they have to do a global milk run to get back to their home countries.

This is the very last thing in the world that the LDS church ought to be f***king around with when it comes to the health and survival of their missionaries.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2014 06:51PM by tevai.

Believing in the non-existent magical god isn't going to save anybody.

Try this simple test to determine if (1) god exists, and (2) if god knows that you exist.

While sitting at a table, place a coin on the table with tails up. Then ask god to flip the coin over to heads up.

Now wait and watch the coin. If it raises up from the table and flips over and then gently settles back down, then god exists and he/she/it knows that you exist.

If nothing happens, then there is no god and/or god doesn't know that you exist.

You can watch the coin for the next fifty years and it will still be sitting there with tails up.

or has a mischievous streak

or....

I want to know why the Mormon church is "continuing to move" missionaries out of Ebola-stricken areas today. Shouldn't the missionaries already be out? How long does it take?

I understand the fondness that the missionaries have for the people of west Africa, but at this point in time, their welfare is in the hands of the Mormon church. I am not convinced that church officials are moving with the necessary degree of speed.

This is an "all hands on deck" kind of situation. Every church resource should be directed to getting the missionaries out as quickly as possible. Half of the people who are getting Ebola are dying from it. This is twice as bad as the medieval bubonic plague that wiped out a quarter of Europe's population. *You don't play with Ebola!*



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2014 07:10PM by summer.

this is (at least presently) nothing like the Black Death. Yes, about sixty percent of confirmed cases in this outbreak have died, and likely 90 percent of untreated cases have died/will die. Similarly, untreated plague has a near 100 percent fatality rate. The only way Ebola could be "twice as bad" as the nearly certainly fatal plague would be to be twice as infectious and entirely unresponsive to treatment, which, at present, it is not.

Well, that's why I included the word "medieval." My understanding was that the death rate in Europe was about 25%, but upon review it looks more like 45-50%, with about a third of the population of the middle east succumbing as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

The black death of the middle ages was apparently a combination of bubonic plague, spread by rodents and fleas, and pneumonic plague, spread by coughing and sneezing. Septicemic plague may also have been involved.

The Wiki article claims that modern, untreated bubonic plague has an 80% death rate. Another article has a 40-60% mortality rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague Untreated pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of 90-95%. Overall mortality for Ebola ranges for 50-90% -- we can assume that untreated Ebola will tend to be at the higher end of that range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola

Nowadays, of course, Bubonic plague can be treated with antibiotics, considerably reducing the mortality rate. There is no cure for Ebola.

So yeah, maybe not twice as lethal. But still very lethal.

Interesting differences of opinion on this board. On another thread people were complaining about them pulling the missionaries out and now this one is complaining because missionaries want to stay. Which is it?

It's called sarcasm, Anonow. Of course the missionaries need to be evacuated with all due speed.

if we had a recalcitrant son in one of those areas.

Yes, he would be a legal adult. And is fully entitled to be stupid is he so wishes. But he can do that in any number of other places.

There are on the order of a hundred million people in the region. That means about 1 in 100,000 has been infected. The infections are no doubt concentrated in hot spots, such as one house or family or neighborhood, and outside those hot spots, it is more like only 1 in a million or more is infected.

Yes, it's dangerous, but a missionary would be much more likely to get killed in a traffic accident.

Someone earlier in the thread asked how long does it take to evacuate people, as in why aren't the missionaries already out of the country.

Um, these are nations with an Ebola outbreak. Other nations are not going to be handing out visas like gumdrops to people. Also, the transportation infrastructure, both in nation, and between nations in west Africa, marginal to start with, is going to be seriously stressed and overloaded. It is going to take a while to round up a couple hundred missionaries scattered around the nation, and get them tickets and visas to another country. Plane tickets and visas are both in very very short supply right now.

But missionaries are encouraged to roam village to village and house to house together to spread "the gospel". And they sleep together, eat together with investigators, use the same bathrooms.

Missionaries would not contain themselves in one little house like a family might do. Even though the infection may be in 'hot spots" a few hundred missionaries would be the perfect agent of dispersal.

I do hope they all make it out okay, but I am starting to have my doubts. If they are US citizens maybe they would be higher on the list for the experimental drug.

People are saying this is a PR job, but surely this is only bad PR? The only way the church can look good in this situation is to check they're not infected then remove them from Africa asap.

It would be difficult for them to sweep a pile of dead missionaries under the rug. I don't suppose they've thought of that though. They think they're invincible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 01:40PM by madalice.

Nope. Nope. Nope.
They cannot sweep the bodies under the rugs. It requires a much bigger deal than that.
http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/africa/sierra-leone/burying-ebolas-victims-in-sierra-leone-66528/

TWO white folks were brought back to the US and given a new experimental drug which appears to have Ebola on the run.

NO black africans were treated. Just the white folk.

"experimental", "not tested or approved"..., is the line the US Doctors are parroting.

With the high death rate do you really think these African folks suffering with Ebola give a damn if the drug is tested or not?

It is good enough for the white folks - why not use it for the blacks as well?

Maybe because they're US citizens?

theoretically, it would b nice to give mishs their choice in the matter, but we all know how (lack of) mature most missionaries are, and how indoctrinated most are...