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COVID-19

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Sucks that humans have the instinct to just invent derogatory terms to label people who think differently than they do, instead of try to understand and respect their points of view.
I think the implicit assumption is "if everyone got the vaccine, we could return to normal." That's what leads to the angst / negative judgment.

So far, our federally elected leaders are not demonstrating that assumption is true.
 

SlickAg

Registered User
pilot
I'm more concerned about the implications on military policy; namely, that vaccinations won't relieve the intense liberty restrictions placed on sailors anytime soon.
Do you think “they”, meaning military leadership, actually cares about this? I’m talking FOGO and SES types. Keep in mind, these are the same geniuses who responded to a disease that disproportionally impacts the overweight by literally shutting down the gyms on base, not allowing people to work out while underway (at all, couldn’t even jump rope in the hangar bay), and making people wear masks if they want to go for a run on base. Their only concern is doing enough CYA to get promoted and/or land that golden parachute job within the military-industrial complex. They don’t care how this whole disaster has impacted the hoi polloi.

Whether or not someone chooses to get an EUA vaccine is a (private) medical issue between an individual and their PCM. “They” can’t tie liberty privileges to a medical issue. It would be like saying only personnel with cholesterol below a certain threshold would be allowed off the ship during a port call.

As far as morale, the vast majority of the active duty folks I know are still headed for the door as fast as humanly possible. Even the ones who were considering staying in have reconsidered their plans given the way they’ve been treated this past year. And the ones on the fence are certainly not eager to head back out to the fleet for yearlong cruises on the USS Underway with pierside liberty only. And HPCON C and the fragord ruining their lives whenever they’re at home. And on det.
 

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Do you think “they”, meaning military leadership, actually cares about this? I’m talking FOGO and SES types.
Yes.

Ultimately, the SECDEF cares about the POTUS's opinion on the matter, and the service chiefs are making policy from that guidance. From the SECDEF, we currently have an active stop-movement order and a mask mandate for military installations; neither of these include exceptions for vaccinated individuals. At the 4-star level, we have a laundry list of restrictions while in HPCON C - again, we don't have any exceptions for vaccinated individuals.

So we can all have a laugh when CinC wears a mask in a video conference, but the sobering reality is that it means restrictions on the military are not going away anytime in the near future.

Whether or not someone chooses to get an EUA vaccine is a (private) medical issue between an individual and their PCM. “They” can’t tie liberty privileges to a medical issue.
Maybe not, which might be why no formal policy to relax liberty restrictions for vaccinated personnel has been promulgated, and everyone is still 'welded to the pier' when in port while in HPCON C regardless of vaccination status.

However, what can be done is COs can cite that there is an active stop-movement order in effect by the SECDEF / CNO that prohibits out of area leave or travel as the default, and if you want to take out of local area leave then one of the risk mitigations to authorize that leave would be vaccination because losing an extra 14 days to ROM is not tenable.
 
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Mirage

Well-Known Member
pilot
I think the implicit assumption is "if everyone got the vaccine, we could return to normal." That's what leads to the angst / negative judgment.

So far, our federally elected leaders are not demonstrating that assumption is true.
If you're right, then perhaps that is part of the problem. Turning people against each other is just one more negative effect of tying reopening to the success of any attempts to force people to get an EUA vaccine they are not ready to get. And while we wait for that criteria to be met (and assuming it doesn't change again), countless people are suffering irreparable harm due to lockdowns and continues restrictions. All in an effort, as far as I can tell, to protect unvaccinated folks from themselves.
 

SlickAg

Registered User
pilot
Yes.

Ultimately, the SECDEF cares about the POTUS's opinion on the matter, and the service chiefs are making policy from that guidance. From the SECDEF, we currently have an active stop-movement order and a mask mandate for military installations; neither of these include exceptions for vaccinated individuals. At the 4-star level, we have a laundry list of restrictions while in HPCON C - again, we don't have any exceptions for vaccinated individuals.

So we can all have a laugh when CinC wears a mask in a video conference, but the sobering reality is that it means restrictions on the military are not going away anytime in the near future.

Maybe not, which might be why no formal policy to relax liberty restrictions for vaccinated personnel has been promulgated, and everyone is still 'welded to the pier' when in port while in HPCON C regardless of vaccination status.

However, what can be done is COs can cite that there is an active stop-movement order in effect by the SECDEF / CNO that prohibits out of area leave or travel as the default, and if you want to take out of local area leave then one of the risk mitigations to authorize that leave would be vaccination because losing an extra 14 days to ROM is not tenable.
I don’t think I was clear in my previous post - obviously leadership cares about POTUS’ and SECDEF’s policies. My point was that I don’t think some senior Navy leadership either fully understands or actually cares how awful life is under the Page 13. Because we are the ONLY service that has one. Everyone is super scared of another Crozier/Modly incident. People don’t make rank by rocking the boat.

I had this conversation with the CO of an aircraft carrier. The literal reason why they can’t do anything about easing liberty restrictions for vaccinated individuals is what I just said - you can’t tie liberty status to medical status. It’s illegal. Not to mention probably unethical. The ball is in the JAGs’ court, and they’re the ones advising to keep the FRAGORD in place. I also don’t think it’s ethical (again probably illegal) to deny someone’s leave request based off of a medical status or condition. Seaman Timmy can’t go on leave because he has myopia?

The vaccine also isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. I wouldn’t be thrilled if I were a CO who had a reluctant sailor who did get the vaccine but had an adverse event. “Sorry shipmate, but I needed you to get this so we could approve your leave next month” or “DESRON has really been in my shit about why I’m not at 100% and you were my last holdout...”.

 

SlickAg

Registered User
pilot
If you're right, then perhaps that is part of the problem. Turning people against each other is just one more negative effect of tying reopening to the success of any attempts to force people to get an EUA vaccine they are not ready to get. And while we wait for that criteria to be met (and assuming it doesn't change again), countless people are suffering irreparable harm due to lockdowns and continues restrictions. All in an effort, as far as I can tell, to protect unvaccinated folks from themselves.
“Walensky added that masks are still recommended for fully vaccinated people attending large outdoor public events, such as concerts or stadiums.

"A lot of that is the inability to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated," Walensky said. "And to say that in those settings, when you have those at that density, we really do worry about protecting the unvaccinated people."”

The CDC Director literally said as much today. I’m “protecting” the unvaccinated people by BEING VACCINATED. A vaccinated person wearing a mask is purely theater so people who have decided to NOT get a vaccine that is available to all adults can...feel better about the fact that they’re in public???

I’m not sure if they could intentionally do a worse job of messaging than this. It’s beyond insane.

 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
"Experts" shall forever be inside dr. Evil air quotes. These people could fuck up a wet dream. Scientists give them a grand slam, all they have to do is package the messaging. That's it. Don't fuck up what you tell the people.

Instead we get "99.8% of you who will survive this have to get this vaccine so you can protect the .2% who won't survive this. But even if you do, you still have to wear a mask because we won't know if you have the vaccine or not, and there's an infinitesimally small chance you may get the disease, but it won't be serious, but mask up just in case. Also, wear a mask to protect those who chose not to get the vax, even though you can't spread it to them because reasons."
 

SlickAg

Registered User
pilot
There it is. It will never end for the covid hobbyists and true believers. You can’t do anything or take off your useless mask even if vaccinated. But if you’re not all vaccinated I’ll help (force) you to protect you from yourself because the news said something about scary variants.
Medieval priest or present-day academic?

“don’t let them gaslight you with this religious dogma about “you must not have masked hard enough!” as though they were some medieval priest hectoring the villagers to tithe more to the church to show devotion and end the drought.”

"Experts" shall forever be inside dr. Evil air quotes. These people could fuck up a wet dream. Scientists give them a grand slam, all they have to do is package the messaging. That's it. Don't fuck up what you tell the people.

Instead we get "99.8% of you who will survive this have to get this vaccine so you can protect the .2% who won't survive this. But even if you do, you still have to wear a mask because we won't know if you have the vaccine or not, and there's an infinitesimally small chance you may get the disease, but it won't be serious, but mask up just in case. Also, wear a mask to protect those who chose not to get the vax, even though you can't spread it to them because reasons."
“why bother getting the jab if you get so little back? they have taken and taken from your rights and freedoms for a year and now, when we get to the point they promised this would end, they offer you nearly nothing in return.

there are only 2 reasons to keep imposing strictures like this while still demanding vaccination:
  1. you do not believe vaccines work.
  2. you do not care if vaccines work but you want to keep playing politics and wielding power.
not believing that the vaccines work, looks, so far, to be unsupportable in the face of the data. (further, if they do not work, why are you pushing them? just to feed the cronies at the trough of pork?)
  • those vaccinated have an annualized covid hospitalization risk of less than 1 in 18,000
  • those vaccinated have an annualized covid death risk of less than 1 in 100,000
  • historical annualized death risk from flu is 1 in 6,400
so we’re talking about TINY risk. we’re talking about 1/15th the risk of flu death, a risk society has long since voted on and decided to do damn near nothing about.”

 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
"Experts" shall forever be inside dr. Evil air quotes. These people could fuck up a wet dream. Scientists give them a grand slam, all they have to do is package the messaging. That's it. Don't fuck up what you tell the people.

Instead we get "99.8% of you who will survive this have to get this vaccine so you can protect the .2% who won't survive this. But even if you do, you still have to wear a mask because we won't know if you have the vaccine or not, and there's an infinitesimally small chance you may get the disease, but it won't be serious, but mask up just in case. Also, wear a mask to protect those who chose not to get the vax, even though you can't spread it to them because reasons."

Shack. This whole thing is an epic failure of risk analysis. My personal opinion is they put the wrong people in the driver's seat. "When the only tool you have is a hammer..." and all that. Medical opinions are fine; I respect their knowledge, but they shouldn't be legislating from the doctor's office, which is what our current breed of "leadership" has allowed to happen.

Science isn't the problem. Bad policy is. I hate that this whole thing could be giving science a bad name to a lot of folks.
 

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
I don’t think I was clear in my previous post - obviously leadership cares about POTUS’ and SECDEF’s policies. My point was that I don’t think some senior Navy leadership either fully understands or actually cares how awful life is under the Page 13. Because we are the ONLY service that has one. Everyone is super scared of another Crozier/Modly incident. People don’t make rank by rocking the boat.
Oh. Yeah, I agree. Classic case of rules for thee and not for me.

I had this conversation with the CO of an aircraft carrier. The literal reason why they can’t do anything about easing liberty restrictions for vaccinated individuals is what I just said - you can’t tie liberty status to medical status. It’s illegal. Not to mention probably unethical. The ball is in the JAGs’ court, and they’re the ones advising to keep the FRAGORD in place.
I think this is splitting legal hairs. What is actually going on is that CO can't cut PO3 Timmy on 5 days of leave out of area because the ship can't spare the additional 14 days of ROM, but he can cut vaccinated PO3 Jones on 5 days of leave who doesn't have to ROM (this ROM guidance comes from NAVADMIN 073/21). It's not the vaccination per se driving the decision at the CO level, but the amount of time the ship can reasonably spare for the sailor (which is still based on vaccination status, but the CO doesn't control that policy...). We also have operational guidance that ships with fully vaccinated crews don't have to wear masks after 24 hours of underway, and that personnel who are vaccinated don't have to ROM for 14 days prior to deployments.

The precedent is already there, we're just dancing around it. I would also argue that blanket restricting over 100,000 vaccinated sailors to the base or their residence per HPCON C- guidelines in order to continue isolating them from the general public is not ethical.
 
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Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Bad policy is. I hate that this whole thing could be giving science a bad name to a lot of folks.
I feel like a "hey, we all know that you don't have to wear a mask to be safe once you've been vaccinated, but since it's not practical (or legal) to check for vaccination status at every private venue we're asking everyone to wear a mask indoors until enough vaccines have been produced so that everyone who wants one can get one. That should occur around June."

Why is that hard?
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
Ultimately, the SECDEF cares about the POTUS's opinion on the matter, and the service chiefs are making policy from that guidance. From the SECDEF, we currently have an active stop-movement order and a mask mandate for military installations; neither of these include exceptions for vaccinated individuals. At the 4-star level, we have a laundry list of restrictions while in HPCON C - again, we don't have any exceptions for vaccinated individuals.
Here is the point of fundamentally different philosophies of leadership's role in an all-volunteer military in a free country. One extreme is blind obedience to whatever it is the boss says and wants (for the record, I don't think our flags are like that) and strict discipline. The other extreme is basing all of your decisions on the troops' quality of life, morale, and whatever their latest whims. I do think our flags are leaning too much on their role as passing on orders down the chain of command and not enough on sanity checking those orders or communicating some very valid concerns up the chain.

Case in point:

Do you think “they”, meaning military leadership, actually cares about this? I’m talking FOGO and SES types. Keep in mind, these are the same geniuses who responded to a disease that disproportionally impacts the overweight by literally shutting down the gyms on base, not allowing people to work out while underway (at all, couldn’t even jump rope in the hangar bay), and making people wear masks if they want to go for a run on base.
The troops will grouse about it and then they'll say aye aye, sir, and carry on smartly. But if leadership gives too many dumb orders like this one then when those troops get to the end of their hitches, a lot of them will not re-up... and that will be a leadership failure, in spite of calling it euphemisms like a retention challenge or difficult environment.

Orders like that one are a stark example of the difference between wisdom and folly.
 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
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