Category Archives: medical news

Vaccination rates need to ramp up!

The stories we keep hearing — all of them verified by medical records — of unvaccinated Americans dying of COVID complications are beginning to drive me utterly insane.

Additionally, we keep hearing from local public health officials from coast to coast to coast that the vast majority of COVID-related hospitalizations involve those who haven’t been vaccinated against the killer virus.

What part of “common denominator” do the numbskulls among us not understand?

The unvaccinated Americans who for whatever reason — many of them idiotic — are not getting protection against the virus simply stun me into silence. I have nothing to say to them or about them.

I heard a story that was reported today about a young man, 24 years of age, who died of COVID complications. The network had recorded him saying he had resisted taking the vaccine because he bought into the idiocy that the pandemic was made up, that it was a “conspiracy” concocted for reasons no one can comprehend.

Then he got sick. He told the TV interviewer he wished he had taken the vaccine earlier. He was convinced it would save his life.

The young man died over the weekend. He leaves a wife and a young son.

Thus, I am left with this conflict of emotions: Do I feel sad that a young man died? Or do I just blow it off, just as he did when he refused to get inoculated?

Pfizer is getting closer to having its booster dose approved by the feds. When that moment arrives, my wife and I will be among the first to get in line and receive it. We got our second shots in February. We have been fortunate so far. We mask up. We practice “social distancing” when it’s possible. We don’t go anywhere out to eat. We stay home as much as we can.

I am fighting hard to keep my sanity, though, while we hear these stories similar to the one I just described. That might be more difficult than the struggle to remain clear of the COVID virus.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Genius’ put in perspective

“Let’s be clear on what genius is. Genius is intelligence. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. It is not a sign of weakness. It is not a sign that you’re not strong in your convictions. It is a sign that you’re open minded. And that’s a good thing.”

– Mike Greenberg

The quote you see here is attributed to a sports journalist. I didn’t hear him say it, but I trust the source from where it came.

When I saw this comment on a social media page, the name “Anthony Fauci” came immediately to mind. Why that name?

Fauci is the nation’s premier authority on infectious disease. Donald Trump summoned him to help devise strategies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. He then dismissed much of the advice that Fauci gave him. The 45th president lost re-election in November this past year.

President Joe Biden has kept Fauci on board the team of medical experts.

Fauci, you see, has changed his mind on a few things lately. Most notably, he has changed his mind about mask-wearing and whether masks are helpful in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Fauci critics — namely Republicans and assorted pandemic deniers — have been heard saying Fauci should be fired. That his change of mind only proves he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

In the words of the inimitable Col. Sherman T. Potter: buffalo bagels!

Fauci’s brilliance must not be measured against his ability to determine immediately how a nation should tackle a killer virus. I daresay Dr. Fauci hasn’t dealt with a pandemic of this nature and scope. He learns something new practically each day, forcing him to change his mind on how to respond the virus.

Is he a genius? You bet he is. I will accept that he is able to learn something new and valuable every time he changes his mind.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Add a word to your shirt

BRENHAM, Texas — It didn’t surprise me in the least to see a dipsh** walking around the Washington Country Fairgrounds wearing a shirt that had a message that sought to stick in the eye of those of us who insist on getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

We traveled to the center of some folks’ political universe. I swear I saw more “Trump-Pence: Make America Great” lawn signs and banners than I have seen in a good while.

Back to the moron and his t-shirt.

The shirt in part read: Unafraid, Unapologetic, Unvaccinated. There was a fourth “un”-word, but I cannot remember it now.

My thought when I saw this clown was that he should have added another term. That would be “uncaring.” He doesn’t care about his loved ones who might become exposed to the virus he might be backing around at this very moment.

We stayed far away from this clown.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Pro-choice and pro-life? Yep!

The debate over the hideous Texas anti-abortion law has me tied in knots. Sort of.

Some of my more conservative friends and family members — yes, I have many of them on the other side of the great political divide — might be wondering why I would be so adamantly opposed to the law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

I am both pro-choice and pro-life on abortion.

No. I do not see any contradiction. I will explain.

I could never provide advice for a woman to get an abortion. I am not wired that way. The issue, for starters, is none of my damn business. The decision rests solely with the woman, her partner, her religious counselor and with God Almighty.

To that extent, I consider myself pro-life.

However, the bigger issue for me is the meddlesome nature of legislation that seeks to dictate to a woman how she can manage affairs of her body. Texas legislators have crossed far into territory where they should not tread.

The law in Texas prohibits a woman from obtaining an abortion any earlier than six weeks into her pregnancy. It doesn’t make any exceptions for rape or incest.

The ghastliest part of the law is that it allows total strangers to rat out a woman if he or she learns she is going to get an abortion. We have created a vigilante corps in Texas. It allows these strangers to meddle where they damn sure don’t belong.

A friend of mine in Amarillo once said he believed in the Biblical theory of Earth’s creation and in the theory of evolution.

What’s more, I once saw a sticker that asked: “Aren’t you glad that the Virgin Mary was pro-life?” Hmm. Well, she also was pro-choice because she “chose” to give birth to the baby who gave Christianity its name.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas AG sues districts … for seeking to keep everyone safe?

There’s a lot of things that get past me. Not this item.

Masks help prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Local Texas school districts are defying a governor’s order that bans them from issuing “mask mandates.” The Texas attorney general, who’s under felony indictment, has sued six Texas school districts for defying Gov. Greg Abbott’s order prohibiting them from issuing mask mandates.

So, wait. Does that mean that Abbott and the AG, Ken Paxton, don’t want districts to do what they can to protect teachers, students, parents and staffers? Really?

Two of the districts — Sherman and Richardson — are in North Texas. This is a ridiculous waste of time and money. Why? Because the governor is flat wrong to ban local officials from doing what they can to protect their constituents against the COVID-19 virus.

The Texas Tribune reports: Some 85 school districts and six counties have instituted mask mandates of some kind in defiance of Abbott’s ban — citing the need to protect schoolchildren too young to get the vaccine amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.

Texas AG sues Sherman, Richardson, other ISDs over masking (ketr.org)

This is preposterous in the extreme. School districts have an obligation to do what they can to protect children, teachers and anyone who enters these public buildings. They shouldn’t be fighting the governor — for crying out loud! — in that effort.

As for the AG, he’s got his own legal battles to fight, as he is awaiting trial on a Collin County indictment that he committed securities fraud.

Abbott and Paxton are managing to enrage me more each day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Medical personnel are heroes as well

(Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A phone call today produced a remarkable statement from one of my North Texas sources, a fellow I have gotten to know well while working as a freelance reporter for the Farmersville Times.

He is recovering from pneumonia induced by the COVID-19 virus.

He is grateful to be alive. Indeed, there was a lilt in his voice I hadn’t heard before today.

My source wanted to make a critical point: He said the medical personnel to tended to him are “among the very best.” They are performing heroic work under trying conditions, he said.

I did not press this fellow about precisely where he had been hospitalized. His feelings, though, about the medical personnel who cared for him could apply all across the spectrum.

My goodness, we hear stories of doctors and nurses stressing out as they care for those cannot touch their loved ones. The coronavirus isolates the sick from the healthy. Those who are hospitalized by the COVID virus become the exclusive charges of the medical professionals who care for them.

So, these folks step up. They become “surrogate loved ones” for those who depend on them to bring them back to good health or to save their lives.

As my friend noted as well, they are answering the call to do what they can under the most trying circumstances one can imagine.

“They need to know how much we care about them,” my friend said. I assured him that I would use this blog as a forum to do that very thing.

So … that is what I am doing here.

These men and women have earned our eternal gratitude for the work they are doing. They save lives every day. How much more heroic than that can it get?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

GOP resists POTUS’s effort to keep us safe? Really?

Did anyone out there ever believe we would see politicians rise up against a presidential decree that seeks to keep all Americans safe from a killer pandemic virus?

If you did, then you are the smartest individuals in all of human history.

I never saw it. Then again, I can be a dim bulb at times … but that’s not the point.

President Biden has issued a stern executive order aimed at private businesses and all federal employees. He insists that employees and federal workers get vaccinated. No debate on it, he said. Companies that do business with the feds must ensure their employees are vaccinated, the president said.

This is a comprehensive effort by our head of state that we no longer will tolerate a pandemic that is caused by those who are unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. The overwhelming majority of those who are being hospitalized in this moment are those who haven’t been inoculated against the virus. President Biden said “enough is enough,” or words to that effect.

Now, though, we hear from Republican governors vowing to fight like hell against any effort from the president to do the right thing, which aims to protect all Americans against potential death.

Why are these governors resisting? Oh, I almost forgot. They adhere to the weird whims of the 45th POTUS, the moron who sold us all out by downplaying the severity of the pandemic when it first started killing Americans in late 2019.

Man, oh man. We live in the strangest political climate I ever have seen. It’s weirder than the late 1960s and the Vietnam War protests; or the mid-1970s and the Watergate scandal.

Not only has the former POTUS fomented the Big (damn) Lie about phony vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election. He has persuaded GOP governors that it’s all right to issue orders that result in the sickening and the death of Americans.

Now these nitwits are challenging President Biden’s effort to rid us of this pandemic.

Astonishing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Docs are invaluable

These social media messages can be so instructive. This one caught me eye and I want to share it.

The nimrods who bitch about the doctors, scientists, researchers and drug company executives are all too willing to throw themselves at their feet when they get sick.

The COVID-19 virus continues to ravage us. It is infecting us at an alarming rate … still! Yet we hear from the red-state rubes that they don’t trust the vaccines being offered; they mistrust the advice of learned medical and scientific professionals, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world’s pre-eminent infectious disease expert; they rely on livestock medication that the docs say is bad for you.

Then they get sick. They are hospitalized. Then they depend on the very same docs who warned them to get vaccinated, to mask up, to practice social distancing; they want those folks to make ’em better.

Hypocrisy? You bet!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Abbott won’t end abortion, either

Now that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared his intention to “eliminate rape” from Texas, I have this overwhelming need to remind him of something else.

He won’t be able to eliminate abortion, either.

Indeed, what the governor and the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature have done is spur desperate women to take desperate measures to terminate a pregnancy. Their measures could kill them.

Abbott signed a law that disallows abortion later than six weeks into a pregnancy. Most women, from what I understand, don’t even know they are pregnant that early.

What is the most egregious element of this law is that it does not allow for any exceptions for rape and incest victims. A woman gets raped or is entangled in an incestuous encounter and become pregnant by her attacker? Tough sh**, lady! You have to give birth to that child.

What, though, might she do? She could go to a medical quack who could perform what they call a “back-alley abortion.” What happens then? Only God Almighty knows.

This is the kind of world that awaits women who might seek to end a pregnancy. It is cruel. It is inhumane. It also speaks to the profound hypocrisy of our state’s political leadership, which proclaims itself to be “pro-life” as it regards the unborn but ignores the needs of sentient human beings who are being told they must carry a pregnancy to full term while enduring enormous heartbreak along the way.

Reports have poured in that Mexico’s supreme court has declared abortion to be legal. Will Texas residents flee across our border to seek an abortion in a country that doesn’t criminalize that act? Or will they merely go to neighboring states in this country where they can end a pregnancy without the threat of being arrested and jailed? Yes, those options await some women.

Those who cannot afford to travel or who are unable to make contact with medical professionals are left to take desperate measures.

Our Legislature and our governor have performed an act of cruelty.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘My body, my choice’

Think about yet another example of right-wing hypocrisy for just a moment.

The conservative political movement has dismissed for decades progressives’ mantra that “my body, my choice” defined their opposition to government mandates banning abortion. They insisted that government had every right to “protect the rights of the unborn.”

Oh, but wait! Now we hear conservatives saying “my body, my choice” as they resist efforts to allow governmental mandates to get vaccinated against a disease that could kill them deader than dead. Government, in this instance, is seeking to protect the lives and the health of those who walk among us.

So, which is it, right-wingers?

Hypocrisy is just so damn ugly. Don’t you think?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com