Leaderboard

I’ll start by saying the COVID vaccines work, and they are clearly effective. But there is also something else going on. My sister received the J&J vaccine over 100 days ago. Within minutes, she started having a reaction. The vaccine site brushed it off. She went to the ER (more than once). They brushed it off. Over the next few days, things continued to get much, much worse. My sister, a PhD, a researcher, a published author, and an active member on international speaking circuit, now has great difficulty even walking. She’s spent months trying to get help from the medical community. All diagnostic tests have come back that she hasn’t any underlying medical conditions that would explain this. She’s mostly told “we don’t know what’s wrong with you, go away.” As soon as the medical community hears this all started happening minutes after a COVID vaccine, they don’t want to touch her with a 20 foot pole. She’s even been told “we don’t want to highlight anything that might negatively reflect on the COVID vaccine effort.” Yes, doctors actually tell her that. She’s also been told by the people giving the medical tests that she’s not the only one they have seen with problems like hers post-vaccine. Her insurance recently told her they aren’t going to cover her tests or physical therapy anymore because they think this is permanent. That was thankfully reversed, at least temporarily, after she reached out to her state insurance commissioner, with lots of data. The “in the trenches” medical community say it’s not their job to report this stuff, so she will have to do it on her own if she wants to report. Here’s the problem. She’s tried to contact the CDC to provide updates and request a medical investigation (that’s a thing they can provide for unexplainable post-vaccine reactions). The CDC has been “shady” to say the least. She’s contacted J&J to submit reports. They took her data and gave her a case number. She called back later to update. J&J said they had no record of her ever contacting them and had no case with that number. She submitted again and received a second case number. She later called back, just to see how they would respond. This time… they still had no record of her calling or no record of either case number. She did this five times and all five times, J&J said they had no record of her. She has initiated a formal investigation against J&J through the FDA. The FDA requires drug companies to self report incidents and reactions. That’s in large part how the FDA determines drug safety. It’s much like how the FAA trusts aircraft manufacturers to provide accurate data for aircraft test and development programs. How odd that J&J has conveniently “lost” 5 attempts at submitting adverse reactions. If they don’t have a report in their system, there is nothing for them to report to the FDA. If the FDA doesn’t have the data, how are they going to be able to determine drug safety? I mean it’s not like a company would ever hide data or critical information to pull a fast one over on the federal regulators. cough*Boeing*cough I’d have thought that the people on c19vaxreactions were a bunch of anti-vaxxer conspiracy nuts, except I came across that website months after my sister was dealing with the same EXACT things as the women on that site (yes, almost all the people on that site are women and I think that is noteworthy) and having the same EXACT reactions by the medical community when they try and get help. There is evidently a problem significantly greater than being reported. Unfortunately, it also seems to be actively repressed by some circles in order to not hurt COVID vaccination efforts. EDIT: while the individuals on the website highlight some valid neurological side-effects that don’t seem to be understood yet, some of the data shared on the site is a bit more suspect… such as taking VARES at face value, or relaying “I know of someone” stories rather than the first person accounts. I don’t blame the FDA here, they operate based off the data they receive so they can include proper warnings of side effects. The FDA were the ones that threw on the warning about J&J blood clotting in women a couple months back, or the recent addition of GBS for men. In both cases, J&J was adamant there was no connection, and there was lots of national pushback against the FDA that adding the warnings would hurt vaccination efforts. People were even calling the FDA irresponsible. I wish our country was in a spot where we can both encourage vaccinations, but also fully acknowledge and support those people who are struggling after having the vaccines. Instead, it’s turned into another front on the culture wars. It’s also a concerning problem when medically relevant data isn’t actually making it to the federal regulators. That’s my biggest concern here and it makes me lose faith in the process. Not in the federal regulators, but rather the process the federal regulators use to make their decisions. The FAA found out the extent of the problem after two 737 crashes, but the FAA didn’t have to deal with the same cultural turmoil that is swirling around COVID.

Virginia has started reporting the data you’re looking for: https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/covid-19-data-insights/covid-19-cases-by-vaccination-status/ This should help answer your questions. These numbers will likely take a bit of a hit with the continued spread of the Delta variant, but the data seems fairly convincing (even if you might argue over a couple numbers here or there).

LOL, I was wondering how long it would take for The Congressman to go from hero to goat on here. I guess the only principle that matters is how covered in orange dust you can get yourself.

1

Just curious, do the 2011 era numbers reflect IFS washouts? I feel like most classes I knew at CBUS finished with only 0-1 washouts but holy shit IFS slaughtered a lot of big dreams in their first 3 months of the Air Force.

I tell my kids all the time quitting is not an option in life…you always see through what you start, no matter how difficult, tiring, boring, whatever. But I also tell them never be afraid to ask for help. My initial reaction is she quit and that’s not acceptable, but on the other hand, maybe she had a gun in her mouth the night prior and almost pulled the trigger. I don’t know, so I should probably give her some benefit of the doubt, and hope she gets whatever help she needs, for whatever is going on in her life.

My SO has become fascinated with gymnastics this Olympics. She's been watching all the events, along with the accompanying documentaries and the like. My take based on her endless prattling on our meaningful discussion: US Olympic level gymnastics kinda sucks for the competitors. They start really young, and train like mad. Nothing wrong with that, but it really seems to be more driven by overbearing parents, rather than ambitious kids. On top of all the sacrifices involved with training at that elite level, you have the fact that the longtime team doctor turned out to be a world-champion sex offender (Larry Nassar). Thought there was something where Biles was scheduled for six events, whereas the other teammates were only scheduled for two? Hadn't heard of her being "deified" in the media for quitting, I got more of a sense people were critical of her for "letting her team down," etc. Not sure though, I haven't been digging into it much. My opinion, based on the little I've seen - good for her. Something to be said for having the courage to stop, assess yourself, and say no when everyone around you is pushing in the other direction. She's long since proven herself to the world. Hope she weathers the storm, returns to the US, gets married, writes a book, whatever-makes-her-happy.

Scrappy is in front of the Garmin tent.

No, you weren’t wondering that. But, you were using the word “principle” in the wrong context. Cheers. I’ve defended Congressman as much as I’ve critiqued him. But this... Can you imagine an aircraft commander crying in the midst of performing their primary duties? During a briefing? WTF. You can’t make rational decisions when you can’t contain your emotions.

He earned them all

Copy, what people report and what they do are very different, thanks for the anecdote. Go here if you want an individual breakdown by ethnicity and age but since you asked for a specific comparison: Black voter: 90 percent likely to have voted for Biden, 10 percent likely to have gotten the vaccine. White voter: 55 percent chance to have voted for Trump, 60 percent chance to have gotten the vaccine 18-24yo: 8 percent chance to have gotten the vaccine, 60 percent chance to have voted for biden Again, the whole point I’m trying to make here is just that claiming conservatives are vaccine deniers sure does seem odd unless now conservatives suddenly make up most of the under 30 population https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic

Yeah but people only understand what's 3 feet in front of their face. Biden is the president now. People are so narrative driven and stupid that I'm sure if trump won in 2020, the situation would be entirely reversed. Vaccination rates on the right would be through the roof and the left would be talking about how the process was rushed and we need to be careful putting all of our trust in these big for-profit pharmaceutical companies.

Shack. More people die every day from random accidents (e.g. falling off a ladder) than Covid. Heart disease kills 6x more people daily than Covid. So why is our policy “zero cases!”-driven for something that’s not even in the top 5? Why do we continually move the goalposts on Covid, yet don’t do shit public-policy wise for heart disease prevention/cure, cancer prevention/cure, etc. Covid is a thing and kills people, got it…but the data does not remotely support the totalitarian reaction from the gov/some portions of society, expressed or implied. Get your shot, or don’t…do what’s best for you and the people you regularly interact with, then STFU about your opinion of what someone else’s personal decision should be.

Dragon lady looking good at KOSH:

Not remotely what I said. Side effects are very real. They are also very rare. There are actors that want you to be hesitant to get a vaccine because it furthers their goals, not yours, and certainly not ours collectively as a nation.

Taking a page from the AOC playbook.....

The worst part about this is she took a spot from someone who would have killed to have been in the Olympics. Going over there only to quit, especially in the team competition, is poor form.

U2 flyby opens the show today.

Last night on TV I heard some former gymnast commentators mentioning this "twisties" thing, and it sounded to me a lot like vertigo/leans or one of the other somatogravic/somatogyral illusions. Things that to us feel very real and can be highly disorienting (even to the point of physical sickness) when we experience them. Obviously in the aviation community we take that stuff very seriously....that gave me a little different take on her decision to step down. That being said, the *real* problem is that she is being deified in the media for quitting, and that's just another indicator that culturally we are disincentivizing merit and promoting victimhood.

Good friend of mine was an elite level gymnast. Was on the Canadian national team, missed the olympics due to injury. Asked his opinion. Gymnists get something called the "twisties" you completely lose focus, forget your routine. He said a lot of injuries happen from this. Either way, she's regarded as the greatest ever, this will tarnish her reputation a bit by not being to handle the pressure.

Thoughts on quitting…

Ok, you really made a strong point and focused heavily about certain types of data being excluded being a problem, though - I didn't get much in the way of descriptive vs. predictive modeling. In any case, descriptive models / analysis don't exclude data from a data set - predictive models / analysis do exclude certain data from the model. In a typical case (not sure what the specific split was in this study), the a data set is split 70/30 into a training and a test data set. The model created using the training data is then used on the test data (not present in the model) to predict a certain variable (outcome) - in this case whether or not someone graduated from UPT. So this study is certainly using predictive modelling techniques. To your point about other factors affecting certain variables limiting their value, if there is data that can indicate a true/false or yes/no or 1/0, then machine learning techniques are flexible enough to account for them. If the data isn't present, in many cases, it'll be a wash in the aggregate. But to answer your point directly, having a degree doesn't make you a good pilot, but having a degree is an indicator that you are more likely to graduate from UPT. And further, the more difficult the degree, the higher the likelihood you'll graduate. Though to be extremely clear, this is not shown by the data available, since every USAF pilot has a degree - it's not variable among pilots - but it is well understood to be generally true.

Yep. What this study really says is this: "Hey Air Force, if you adjust the relative weights of the selection criteria you're already using, you could do about 9% better in choosing your pilot candidates. That's a decent improvement." One thing I noticed, though, is that the model was not published, nor was the data. Both would be very interesting to play with and see. They talk a lot about how they used a decision-tree model (which tend to be more explicable). This makes it easier for the Bob's to know what's going on inside the black box.

If it’s on the internet it must be true right? Not suggesting there aren’t real people who have had reactions (even severe ones) to vaccinations. There is literally no barrier to someone creating a website like this though, and it appears that there are indeed at least several more. The implication of this site and those like it is that the vaccines are less safe than advertised and that the “authorities” are hiding data from you. There are numerous actors that are benefiting greatly from the discord that is caused in the US by sites like these. Have you considered that it might be you who is being played by influencers who want to harm your country? Not a pleasant thought, I know, but sometimes we need to accept unpleasant feedback. I’m sure I will be counter-accused of the same thing. Fine, but ask yourself this: Why are you willing to accept data, theories, and opinions from non qualified commenters on the internet but not the known and accepted expertise of YOUR OWN government health agencies? Imperfect as we may be (and have always been), we are still the greatest nation on earth. This “American government is failing and untrustworthy” attitude is pure poison being injected by our enemies to great effect as of late.

The comment section is brutal… Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Obviously the lower minority vax take rate is due to systemic racism. Obviously. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Alright I keep seeing statements like this claiming that the left is all vax’d up and good to go while the right is just refusing. A 30 second look at vaccine demographics shows that the young and minorities have much lower vax take rates across the country, and quite frankly it doesn’t take a political scientist to know which political leaning those demographics have. So unless I’m missing something based on demographics alone the argument that support of Biden or liberal policies correlates to getting a vaccine is flawed at best based on data alone. Standing by for remediation

Completely agree. I'm sure the vast majority of Democrats made the decision to get the shot with little to no knowledge or consideration of the underlying data. They're just doing the thing that's in vogue for their side as well. I attribute the vaccination rate differences to two things: 1) people are driven by narratives and they want to join a team so they can hate on the other team 2) the average American has a terrifyingly poor grasp of math and statistics. Neither of these are a good basis for personal health decision making

Of 20/51 worst states (& DC), Trump won 17. The 3 he lost (Nevada, Arizona, & Georgia) had a combined margin of 2.9%. This is odd to me as the vaccines were developed mostly under his administration. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/president/

Agreed there are people out there who make decisions based on conspiracy theories, biased social media information, don’t critically think, etc. But, it’s a gross overgeneralization to say no vaccine = you’re obviously incapable of making unemotional, data-driven decisions. My family and I are not getting it for now, and that decision has nothing to do with Fauci, Facebook, Bill Gates, microchips, etc. It is a 100% data-driven, unemotional, logical thought process that led us to this decision…because it’s right for us in our life situation. I’m not saying it is right for everyone, nor do I judge those who get the vaccine; I’m not them/know all the details of their life situation. It’d be a hell of a lot better if more people took this approach towards their fellow countrymen (is there an X in that word now?)

Ahh, good. The "Whatabout-ism" phase of the discussion.

Doesn't matter. We aren't talking about MMR, polio or small pox. We are talking about COVID. I mean, small pox is far more infectious that COVID and had a 30% mortality rate. I sure as hell more likely to take chances on a new small pox drug than I am COVID because the risk now seems a lot more necessary. Point being none of your case examples or really relevant to the conversation. We have to evaluate each crises individually with their own nuances. A major nuance of COVID is the vast majority of people in society aren't at risk to lose anything more than a week of work from it. Now you have to convince them that getting a vaccine that likely won't do much for them is necessary for them.

I mean again, I think the biggest hinge on refusal is liability. It's great that getting the vaccine when you have almost 0 risk of dieing is making a noble contribution to society, but when you get the vaccine and do have a side effect, who is going to give you anything more than a "thank you for your service," a hollow offering empty of any real value. These are anecdotal cases but when you are the center of the anecdote the statistics don't matter to you, and to society you don't matter. In the end your left with a lifetime of heart issues, hospitalizations or painful menstrual symptoms, medical bills and perhaps a lost career, and all you get is a "well that's a very rare chance of happening". Now, in all of these stimulus checks, if the government did something like for instance, set up a 50 billion dollar fund to research long term side effects of the COVID vaccines and compensate victims of the short term side effects, you may find more uptake. But right now noone wants anyone to take that risk except you, and for you, as a low risk person to die of COVID, that becomes an unnecessary risk. And what do we always say about unnecessary risk in the operational world?

I agree with you that this has been mishandled and politicized from the start. But also... the Democrats' shitty interpretation of the data shouldn't cause individuals to abandon data-based decision making in response. There are good data on the efficacy and safety of these vaccines from all over the world and none of it has anything to do with the lab leak, what the teachers unions are up to, or what fauci says on a daily basis. An educated person should be able to distinguish between those two things and still make a solid data-based health decision. Don't trust the CDC? Perfect, because there's 100+ other countries whose health departments have reams of encouraging data on vaccines too. But instead, we have close to 50% of the country refusing the vaccine. I don't think it's because they carefully considered all the data and made a finely calibrated personal health decision. It's because they're wrapped up in the covid narrative battle and they believe the Democrats/CDC/fauci are lying to them and trying to use covid to control them. Which, again is completely true. It just shouldn't be a factor in an individual personal health decision.

Good point. The “trust the data” position was undermined early in the pandemic. The same scientists who I’d normally trust were telling me Trump political rallies were super spreader events but then signing letters saying BLM riots were ok. Data indicates kids not statistically significant spreaders but we have to cancel schools when the teachers union edits the CDC talking points. “This definitely developed naturally” turned into a total hoax as the scientists were discovered to be behind an attempt to hide the origin in a lab in China they were donating to. These aren’t conspiracy theories, all of these events above happened. When data originates from people caught lying, their additional data is suspect. This is why Fauci’s “noble lie” approach is so damaging. We are the most advanced and scientifically minded society to have ever existed. That we’re back to telling each other anecdotes is not a sign we’re idiots, but rather the scientists should have stayed in their lane of science.

My case was 5 days of getting my ass kicked completely. After that it was fine. I’m a healthy person with no real health problems and a physique that I would describe as “godlike”. Medical science would probably describe me as balding mid-30’s dude that could lose 15 lbs. I don’t know about the other people, the antecdote just stood out to me. I don’t really care to join in on either side of this but I do find it interesting the number of vaccinated folks getting sick. If I hadn’t been vaccinated, I guess I would’ve died since I was sick for so long.

Actually this is really plausible and believable. Remember the vaccine only has ~90% efficacy. So 10% of people are still getting COVID. If 100% of people in the UK were vaccinated, 100% of your hospitalizations would be vaccinated. The UK has a very high vaccinated population (70%) that is disproportionately weighted by people who are at risk individuals (were able to be vaccinated earlier.) Hence, the 10% of 70 people vaccinated probably holds a lot of weight against the 30 unvaccinated people who are predominantly low risk. The most important statistic regarding the UK though is their overall hospitalizations which; are only 1/10 of what they were 6 months ago when their infection numbers were nearly identical. This big pretty problem I see with COVID policy at the moment is we lost sight of the goal. The goal was the reduce casualties by minimizing hospitalizations. Somehow the mindset has shifted to the goal being 0 case #'s. That will never happen and why do we care?

Well, I know a bunch of people who got vaccinated and didn't get covid even after they were exposed. See, we both have personal experiences. Are you convinced by mine?

How many ended up dead or hospitalized? Something like 99% of covid deaths and 97% of hospitalizations since Jan 1st are unvaccinated people. If everyone is vaccinated then sure, you might catch it...but the severity becomes so low that it doesn't really matter.

Shack.

My personal take on it is that it’s time to move past the vaccine/not vaccine, mask/no mask discussion… The vaccine is free and widely available, get it if you want, don’t if you don’t. Wear a mask if you want, don’t if you don’t. Don’t come crying to me when you get COVID, and I won’t come crying to you when I can’t have kids in 3 years. Make your personal choice and let’s get back to business. Hopefully this policy stays local to us so no one else has to deal with this painful step backwards

RM math isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it also never will be. Sometimes a risk assessment just comes down to gut feeling. Hairs on the back of the neck and all that. If a dude one day isn’t comfortable with 300/1 and he wants to cancel, sure go ahead. If a dude will never be comfortable with 300/1, that’s a different problem.

Agreed. As a U-28 guy we regularly launched just because. Then after many years a great sq/cc stopped that. Why the hell are we launching above a solid IMC layer with no troops on the ground? And why are we doing it when we can’t even see where we would glide if our one and only engine went out? That guy was worth his salt and a tremendous leader who took shit for that decision but at the time the weather was completely good enough to takeoff and land with minimums. Some things you can’t describe in the 202-V3. And for what it’s worth he was a former F15 guy who would absolutely want to lead his guys into battle on night one. You are right Scooter though, we can’t learn if we don’t talk about it and thus yes. Absolutely great discourse on here the last few days. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bad counterpoint. SOF units wouldn't be caught dead with a non SOF commander. Also, the dude leading the guys on horseback was an operator. He wasn't some logistics dude that said "peace out, tell me when it's done".

Young young crew chief uhhello was at PSAB for start of OIF. Waiting on pilot to show up and was surprised to see the WG CC's SUV pull up to spot. Was surprised and asked ignorantly what he was doing. "I'm leading the package in".

Leadership traits can span many groups/organizations, but it’s ignorant to think there is a one-size-fits-all leadership know-how that can effectively lead any organization. Yeah MSG guy, you did supervisor/lead 100 airmen…now stand up front and lead this MPC and tomorrow’s 80v30 mission vs. a peer level threat. I’ll wait…

No, Hacker was making the point that if you lead a squadron tasked with going into combat, or a wing, etc. you better be qualified in the primary mission otherwise you lack credibility. WSO leading a strike Eagle unit, absolutely. SOC douche leading a unit that constantly needs IP supervision? That’s what Hacker is talking about.

How much liability exists for flu, MMR, polio, and smallpox vaccines?