ViperMan

Here's the thing. If it was total bullshit, it would have warranted and received zero response. Absolutely zero response. The fact that it has received a major response, being addressed by the man himself, and also is now "under investigation" is all you need to know that the allegations are fully credible. And you know what? Someone acting with integrity in the face of other people acting with none is never a foul.

Dude, I'm sorry, but no. Just no. The obesity rate in Korea and Japan is approx 4% and 3% respectively. The obesity rate in the USA is 10x those numbers. So no, I'm sorry, it was not diligent masking that resulted in less death in those cultures. It's the fact that they weren't twinkied tinderboxes. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/obesityandtheeconomicsofpreventionfitnotfat-koreakeyfacts.htm https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/14321/?ln=en https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/health/covid-fat-obesity.html https://www.science.org/content/article/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20211020/even-with-mild-covid-obesity-may-mean-worse-symptoms#1 https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html Occam's Razor suggests that this is the, or close to the, root cause of why our populace has had a relatively hard time with this disease when compared to other cultures. Standing by for correlation does not equal causation flags.

Well fine, @Pooter, but to be clear, a pandemic is defined as spread of a disease affecting a large population over multiple geographic areas. If you're just going to willy nilly change the definition to mean a pandemic equals people dying, then yeah, sure, you can argue anything you want. But over here in my world, words mean things, and those meanings are imbued with importance, especially when you're arguing or debating a point. It's fine if you don't care about people getting the sniffles, but I assure you, infectious disease experts care about the uncontrolled spread of disease, not solely those diseases which are killing people. And to your point about mandates, this is where we depart ways. YOU don't think it is an undue burden on SOMEONE else? So therefore it isn't? That's our logic now? My, how bourgeois and enlightened of you.

It seems you skipped over my first attempt to provide you clarification. Please post my statement where I said cases would not exceed 250K per day. You know what, nevermind. I'll do it for you. Here's the first re-attack again if you choose to read it. From this point forward, I'm going to have to defer to someone else on this forum to help explain to you that I was doubting the sincerity of the people in charge given the assumptive death-rate you panic-stricken posters seem to think is imminent. Not that we would get to some arbitrary number of infections per day. Anyway, I guess the big guy (and maybe #2 also?) is giving some speech right now about how Jan 6th was supposedly the end of America as we know it. I think you should keep screaming from the mountain tops, @Negatory, because it's not possible in my world for them to be so highly dedicated to political theater in the face of impending doom. I feel like you know something they don't. Hell, you probably do, and if so, you really need to be spending your time reaching out to people who can make some substantive change, rather than enlightening all of us air force pilots on this small corner of the internet called baseopsforums.com because I really feel that we're not your intended audience. You have received knowledge that needs to be delivered to the people at the top of our government, because it's obvious to me that they don't have the same information you purport to have. No one here is going to be able to implement any further societal restrictions, or enact a lock-down that will save us from the tidal wave of death that is headed our way. You're really wasting your time with us. Sorry to say, you have been standing in the wrong line at the DMV. By way of implication, you seem to believe that for a few weeks starting in ~ mid-January the USA is going to experience about 300-500K deaths, right? This approaches Civil War deaths. They PTB cannot both know that we're going to experience that level of pandemic death and destruction, and simultaneously be placing focus on a riot that got out of control a year ago to make a political stump speech. Or hell, maybe they can because they are that cynical. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I'll continue to scoff their sincerity, competence, and your reading comprehension.

What platform?

LOL "Hey, 2...what the hell's with all the bbq sauce in your helmet bag???"

Fine. But are YOU ok with those things I've listed, and if so, why? If not, why not? What is your opinion?

So in-restaurant dining, football games, and the like are all ok with you then? Football playoffs are all good? If so, what is the big deal then and what is this conversation even about anymore? I'm just so confused at the apparent inconsistency between what we have seen thus far, and what the prediction is, and the difference between the two. I'm not an idiot, and I just can't reconcile it. Also, I'm not predisposed to giving these people the benefit of the doubt anymore just playing my violin and being polite to all the other people who seem content to just go down with the ship.

Mmmmmm...I think they know, because it's what the preliminary data shows. If it was 70x as infectious with the same death rate (or worse, possibly) do you think they'd be justified in not locking down again? Would they be justified to allow college football to continue? How about in-restaurant dining? Seems to me that it was all well and good to lock down last year, but now for some reason it's unacceptable. Why is it different now? Why aren't we locking down? Not why won't we lock down in a week or two, why haven't we already locked down? Ask yourself that.

I'm not surprised by this. Omicron is like, what, 70x as infectious as the other variants? And it can break through multiple shots? My point - which I include again below for your convenience, so you can read it again - is to say that I don't believe the HYPE around this next variant. All I'm saying is that they are either: Lying about what they think will happen re: the death rate. So cynical that they are right about impending doom and don't have the balls to act, or just don't care. It's one of those two things. Neither one is complimentary to the administration. Now, if they suspect that literally a 100,000 people will be dying every week with this thing and they don't lock down? Hmmm...I'll be looking for LOTS of resignations from the people in charge of this thing. They have the power, and if they don't exercise if for political reasons, then they are done. More than they already are. Thus far, Omicron has not been the scourge it could have been. It's highly infections, but not very virulent. 14 people have died in the UK (https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-says-14-deaths-129-hospitalised-by-omicron-2021-12-22/) as of a couple days ago, and more will. Here are some unavoidable facts: This bug is EXTRAORDINARILY transmissible. Regardless of vax status. This bug is highly likely to infect you. Regardless of vax status. If you get it, you are highly likely to spread it. Regardless of vax status. If you wear a mask, you're probably doing something, but not much to help avoid spreading or catching it. So, with that established, what is the point of all the panic? What is the point of mandates? What is the point of calling it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"? How about we just let people be educated about the disease and their options, and call it a day? That's my vote.

No, to answer your question directly, but please don't miss the point of mine. There is an important distinction to be made here. All those vaccines have been around for years (decades), they are well-understood, old technology, and most importantly, they have become part of the array of things the public accepts (see: seatbelts, no-smoking in public places, airplanes, catalytic converters on your car, etc.). There is a long list of things the American public finds acceptable that could be construed as restrictions on muh'freedom. For some reason, all those things are cool. The difference, though, is that our government has done an absolutely first rate job over the last two-ish years, giving people all manner of reasons to be suspy of what the hell is going on and in many cases to not accept the COVID vaccines as part of that "array" of things. For example: Democrats feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with Trump Republicans feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with mandates Our whole-of-government response to any discussion surrounding the origin of COVID (i.e. our attraction to the natural-origin story sans evidence) The PTB labeling anything suggesting a lab-leak to be "conspiratorial" Our holyamazeballz! response to the initial reports of 94-95% vaccine effectiveness! Our subsequent lack of an accountable discussion that recognizes these vaccines function more as therapeutics, rather than as vaccines as we all traditionally understood them Our initial government response to call travel restrictions 'racist' Our later governmental response to not call the same travel restrictions 'racist' The initial edict to not mask up - the later mandate to do so The encouragement to go eat out in China town, followed by silence two weeks later when COVID exploded in NYC The focus on passing BBB with all manner of social hand-outs and goodies, as opposed to you know, focusing on this disease that is supposedly going to destroy the world The contrast between what was considered "ok" last year (BLM protests, tearing down statues, rioting, calling racism a 'public health crisis, etc) and what "wasn't ok" (going to work, going to school, going to visit your family at Thanksgiving) In short, our collective response to this situation has been fully inept from the word "go" and it has continued to be inept. Worse yet, in the backdrop, there has been a constant drone of misinformation and a steady unwillingness of people on both sides of the isle to fairly address critiques coming from the other. All that to say I'm not anti-vax. I'm merely saying that when you take the sum total of the above self-contradictory set of environment variables, you are creating and enhancing the conditions that give people legitimate reasons to push back - and not all of those people are tin-hat types. Moral of the story, we screwed up, and now we need to eat our humble pie. Which in this case, means you encourage people to get vaxxed, while the rest of us move the F on with our lives. ///////// And as far as the FDA is concerned, they have a very important role to play, but I also think their function has been largely co-opted by other industries in our corporatist society. For example, in order for something to be considered "food" in America, it can't be shown to cause harm. For something to be included in food in European societies, it must be shown to contribute nutritional value. Forgive me, because that is a complete paraphrasing of something I was made privy to a long time ago, but it stands out in my mind as an important contrast between how our society functions vs how others' do. Why is our system like this? Probably because our governmental organizations are run by industries that write rules to benefit themselves (see Agit Pai as the FCC chairman). That's a huge problem. So yes, while a properly sanctioned FDA would and can serve a vital public health function in the USA, ours currently is functioning sub-optimally. For example, we should probably have laws that preclude high-fructose corn syrup from being in everything, but we don't.

Douchebags often serve an important roll in our society. Here's one saying the emperor has no clothes, and even though it's offensive and uncouth, it does a great job highlighting the lengths to which the rest of the establishment is failing to hold power accountable and failing to have important conversations. But yeah, it's probably more important that we all just continue playing our violins.

Dude, this is the prototype of an ill-formed hypothetical, meaning: it has to intentionally side-step and ignore other 2nd and 3rd order things that would happen in such a situation in order to produce its "point." Ok, so in your construction here, you posit a virus that will kill 320M Americans? Meaning it is going to both infect, AND kill EVERYONE? Ok, I can roll with that. Mandates still aren't required. If such a disease arrived on set, you'd have people locking themselves down, and killing each other to get the vaccine. You think you'd need to mandate it at that point? Lol. Move down the continuum from there, and people's collective behavior appropriately balances it all out. No one is "accepting" any excess deaths.

I guess, but not really? I was really just making a point about how people love to discredit a person or a group of people vs. engaging with the idea and addressing it directly - something I think you were doing by referencing that website. Boy cries wolf. Broken clock is right twice per day. The emperor is wearing no clothes. Whatever. Plenty of allegories illuminate our tendency to miss the truth intentionally or accidentally. Either way, I think a better way to engage is to look at the object, vs look at what someone else is saying about the object because no matter what, you're taking it through their filter. Honestly, I think we have all lost the thread of what we're talking about. What are we all even arguing about anymore? People are right/wrong about different things to varying degrees. Bottom line, proof is proof. Calling it "extraordinary" is much more a statement knowledge state of an individual, rather than a statement about the evidence itself. Plenty of good pilots have crashed good airplanes - you know this. Does that make them bad pilots, or people who made a mistake? Again, it's just better to address the topic rather than the person/group.

I know nothing of the CCCA, but if we're attacking organizations based on who they are vs what they're saying, we are probably masking a weak position. Remember, the WHO is not allowed to acknowledge that Taiwan is an independent nation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM). That in and of itself means they have at least some level of inside political discourse - which indicates their positions and policies are beholden to those same politics. I suppose that discredits them in your eyes, right?

Note, you can start that discussion any time you like - and there is also a law (can't remember what it's called) that says you don't have to disprove bullshit, or convince stupid people that they're dumb. So don't worry about it. The Alex Jones and Berenson types can generally be ignored. Also, I'm not about to defend any of these stupid videos of soldiers "standing up" to the PTB and demanding answers to questions. I think they are grossly misguided, as a rule, and I don't think I would have made a good Marine. In any case, I think it's worth continuing the discussion on this point in particular. On this point, my personal belief is that there should be zero religious exemptions for anything in the military. Like, there shouldn't be regulatory guidance that governs religious exemptions. The only thing they do is put military leaders in the impossible situation of determining what "sincerely held" means - which is not a determination that can be made, unfortunately - and then arbitrarily granting and denying them based on that determination. This undermines their roles as leaders, because it does, in actuality, force their decisions to be arbitrary. But in any case, since religious exemptions are a thing, it matters. I looked for, but could not find, a historical example of a religious exemption for a vaccine in the military. That said, I have a feeling that they're out there, and that they have been approved in the past. Taking that admitted assumption as the case, it was made clear to us as the ramp up to the vaccine being released that "religious exemptions" would not be a thing for the COVID vaccine. Well, ok, cool - not that I particularly care - but why was this message pushed out so clearly, and with such certainty? That occurrence strongly suggests to me that this is an "unofficially official" policy that there will not be any religious exemptions to this vaccine. The idea was floated at the highest levels of our government, and it was made absolutely, crystal clear, that there will not, under any circumstance, be exceptions to this policy - history and our present reality reflects that. Why is that important? Because it adds to my suspicion that this is all theater. And every day that passes, I become more and more convinced that it actually is. We locked down when this thing first began, and at its absolute worst, we were seeing ~250K/ cases per day with ~3-4K deaths per day (if you subscribe to the notion that COVID was the sole cause of death, which I do not; https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html). Now, you're telling me that this thing is going to imminently peak not only to that level, but at a rate (mathematical certainty) that will top it by 4X!!! Are you kidding me? And all we get from #1 is a statement that if your vaxxed, you can go on vacation, but if you're not, you're gonna die??? Mkay. I don't believe you. I don't believe that these people actually think we're heading to a space where 12,000-16,000 people are going to be dying every day. I don't believe they believe that. If they did, they'd be taking different steps. It's fear porn in order to justify expediency that there is otherwise no appetite for. If they do believe that, and that's all they're doing, then they're even more cynical people than I already think.

I'm not traditionally religious, but do you really think this? IMO all humans are religious - see the new religion of wokism taking root. Some people know what they're religion is called...man other 'enlightened' ones think they're above it. Like it or not, something in your life is functionally equivalent to religion, you just may not know what it is. The religious instinct runs much, much deeper than thinking a dude does or doesn't live in the sky.

Yeah, max the Roth TSP, then if you can dump more money into the traditional if you want. I think we're on the same page. I interpret this to mean that you're not allowed to exceed $19,500 in the Roth TSP under any circumstance: "The Elective deferral limit applies to the combined total of traditional and Roth contributions. For members of the uniformed services, it includes all traditional and Roth contributions from taxable basic pay, incentive pay, special pay and bonus pay but does not apply to traditional contributions made from tax-exempt pay earned in a combat zone." Key phrase "traditional contributions." TRADITIONAL contributions... Are you saying you can add more than the 19.5 to the roth TSP? Because if so, I haven't seen a source that backs that up.

Comments like this invariably need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

For comparison's sake, in Texas (where I could find numbers), COVID has "killed" approximately 2200 vaccinated individuals from Jan to Oct this year (https://www.dshs.texas.gov/immunize/covid19/data/cases-and-deaths-by-vaccination-status-11082021.pdf). In 2019 (in Texas), the flu/pneumonia killed ~3100 people (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/flu_pneumonia_mortality/flu_pneumonia.htm). There's your numbers. Get the vaccine or don't. It's your choice. I don't care. The pandemic is over. I'm going back to normal.

A couple things. First, society is in a constant state of creative destruction, and that has to be guarded against at all times, and in all places. If you think any previous epoch in history achieved "stasis" I think you need to pick up a history book. Which is to say this, if you think mandating people to do things - any things - against their will is going to lead to a more stable society, I think you need to re-evaluate some assumptions about people. And second, yes, all golden ages have had their contrarians, and they tend to be the people who are most celebrated in our history books: Plato, Galileo, Copernicus, Gandhi, Jesus. I guarantee you, guarantee you, most people had the opinion that those people were assholes. And don't forget the most important, and underlying, point: a dynamic society - a society that is capable of inventing vaccines like the ones we have - enables assholes, tolerates assholes, and makes room for assholes. In fact, it's a lot of these assholes who are responsible for some of the greatest things we have in our lives. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Certain people will always be stupid and will make stupid decisions - let them. This is a can of worms, but in short, I would say that COVID was a "contributing factor" in that approximate number of deaths. The root cause? I don't buy that for one second. Remember, the medical establishment is a self-interested bureaucracy just like any other. For instance, see how skin biopsies and excisions from medicare fee-for-service recipients doubled over the 13 year period from 2004 to 2017, with the death rate remaining constant (hint: over-diagnosis for $$$)...which leads me back to my fundamental point - you should be the one choosing what goes in your body, not anyone else. I'm baffled by how that has somehow become a controversial statement. What we have successfully done, is miss an opportunity to honestly address the ongoing health crisis in this country with respect to obesity and our collective lifestyles. Voices early on in the pandemic were identifying obesity as a major co-morbidity with this disease, but no one wanted to hear that. Now, lo and behold, we see articles that are saying exactly that - fat tissue is targeted by the virus. Look at the morbidity of places like Japan, where obesity is not a thing - waaaaaaaay less. So I would invite you to peel back the onion beyond the one thin layer you seem content with and get closer to the root causes of this crisis.

I don't think it will surprise us, but that's like, my opinion. I think it is an unknown, and that people's strongly held positions on these matters is unfounded. I mean people are certain - certain - that there is not going to be a latent side affect. That's cool, and that's the camp I'm mostly in, but I'm not about to say I guarantee there won't be, or that these mRNA vaccines are so similar to other vaccines that we can even begin to say that. The bottom line is that we don't know, and had we been so certain of this technology before this pandemic struck, we'd have already had a spread of mRNA vaccines on the street - but we all know we didn't, and arguments to the contrary beg the question. These vaccines are the first in their category. All that is to say this: I think arguments that rest on someone else's dictate about a medical treatment you should get are null right out the gate. You are the only person that gets to determine medical treatments for you. So all the back-and-forth I read on this thread about Dr. X or M.D. Quaqmire having the opinion that I "should" or "must" get the vaccine I really just roll my eyes at. In my world, spite is a perfectly acceptable reason for not taking a vaccine, and it requires no justification beyond, or even to that standard. Don't want to get it because you're a contrarian? Fine by me. Just don't come hat in hand when you get COVID and wind up dying. Anyway, that's my position on civilian mandates. If you're in the military, you don't get a say. Take the shot or get out. I don't think there should be exceptions for individuals in the military for anything, including religious reasons.

Confirm all those previous studies cited are in reference to mRNA vaccines / therapeutics? Oh, they aren't? So we're applying a meta analysis of apples to oranges. Ok 👍. Just so I'm clear.

This is categorically false. I agree with the theme of your post, but are you serious with this? Dude, there is no set time limit regarding when a latent effect may or may not show up and under what circumstances or conditions or sub populations. That's not to say it's not a poor excuse to avoid the vaccine (in the military), but it is a valid concern nonetheless.

*can* have massive implications on the ultimate rate of spread. Not will. *can*. It depends on the model and the other parameters. There is usually a point of no return where the model will trip into one phase from another. Incremental changes within one phase or the other won't change the outcome. The same incremental change that bridges the divide between said phases will result in drastically different outcomes.