Zman

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).

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.

One of the main barriers I see when people debate airlift fires is everyone hears a few snippets of narrative and fills in all the rest with their preconceived notions of how it’s going to work (or not work). Understandably, most of those preconceived notions are based on their individual backgrounds, but “traditional” isn’t how this is supposed to play out. If C-17s were going to employ JASSMs for targets sets the way a B-1 or Strike Eagle does it, sure, that’s not going to work great. This is not a one-for-one swap for CAF assets or to go after target sets the CAF will always be best suited for. There’s no intent for replacement here. For the CAF dudes who don’t understand what’s involved in airdrop execution, airdrop really isn’t all that different from going to a LAR. Yes, MAF guys know how to make a ToT and release on parameters for a given thing. When MAF airdrop guys are saying there isn’t a lot of extra training involved, that’s what they mean. And in this regard, they are right. This system is designed for them to operate like they are dropping a normal heavy equipment platform. For the front-end crew purposes, it should be fairly transparent. The platform then does the extra work once released. Yes, pre-mission planning JASSM and supporting JASSM systems in-flight are separate topics with separate solution sets. That’s not what people are talking about when they say there isn’t a lot of extra training. I’d prefer to say away from that discussion in this forum. This isn’t also just about JASSM itself. If this works for JASSM, this will probably work for other things that we have now, or we are getting in the future. Many of those are compelling when you can employ en masse. Also, not everything goes boom. Finally, what we have today isn’t the same stuff we’re stuck with 10-15 years from now. You needed a fabric covered plane with a bullet deflector on the prop before you could get interrupter gear to fire between the prop, then on to all-metal .50 cal firing beasts. The first deployed capability doesn’t mean that’s where development ends. But you’ve got to start somewhere. There’s some interesting second and third order effects: Red knows where we are going to operate our fighters and bombers. Now, look at the potential operating locations of austere capable airlift. CAF dudes, do you want all of Red’s hate directed at you, or would you rather Red having to trying and figure out who else is going to give them problems? How many of our Allies and Partners have a robust bomber force, able to operate at range without AR and with significant payload capacity? Zero. Ok, now how many of them have airdrop capable airlift? Probably dozens. Again, this isn’t just about JASSM. If you can throw a JASSM, you can throw something else. That something might not have to be US designed/built either. Our friends aren’t going to buying bombers or rapidly expanding their fighter force any time soon. Do you want access to effects or do you not? It’s a lot cheaper/faster to build a new type of munition than a new platform. New munitions unlock capabilities that weren’t previously available to a given platform. For some munitions out there, does it REALLY matter what platform you use if you’re going after a bridge or building? I know, people will come back with “it depends…” Point being, not every target requires the systems in a CAF asset to kill/degrade that thing. I’d argue if you’re sending the CAF after those, you’re squandering valuable assets when you have other options. We’re not able to have the billons needed to buy and sustain a temporary surge fleet of traditional munitions slingers. Even if we did, I’m sure Red wants us to keep on doing what we’re good at today. They have been spending the last few decades learning how we operate and I think they would prefer us doing “more of the same.”