Category Archives: medical news

medical news

Fight the ‘common enemy’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the man who at this point in our pandemic battle does not need an introduction.

He said the following: “I wish … that people would realize that the common enemy is the virus. Not each other. We’re in this together. And the only way we’re going to conquer this virus is by working together.”

Well, there you have it. This bit of wisdom almost can stand without a single additional thought.

I’ll just offer this brief addition. The backbiting over mask-wearing, government mandates and the alleged “loss of freedom” only weakens our hand as we keep fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is imperative that we start “working together.”

medical news

Pols vs. docs: Who do we believe?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There once was a time not too long ago when we thought we had made the turn down the stretch in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then came the variant called Delta. It’s changed. So now we’re being treated to a war of words between elected politicians and medical experts.

Who do you believe? The pols — some of whom want to run for president in 2024 or the physicians/scientists/researchers who have no obvious political ambition?

Hmm. I am going to stick with the docs. I will ignore the politicians.

We have clowns such as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida making an utter a** of himself by threatening to withhold salaries of school officials who order students and teachers to wear masks to fight the COVID pandemic.

Here in Texas, we have another GOP governor, Greg Abbott, who issued an order that bans schools, counties and cities from taking measures that go beyond what the governor has decreed. School officials in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin have defied the governor’s order. Why did they do that? Because the medical experts in their respective communities have told them that requiring masks will help stem the infection rates cause by that Delta variant.

Congress is sprinkled with fruitcakes and assorted nut jobs who keep suggesting that mask-wearing mandates deprive us of our “freedom” to live like Americans. Hey, listen up goofballs: I prefer to live, period. The alternative — illness and possible death — would rob me of much more “freedom” than any order that comes from the county courthouse, city hall or the school district administration.

The doctors have the knowledge, the information, the credentials and the credibility to withstand the criticism being leveled at them by political hacks.

I intend to stand with the medical experts.

They are the men and women with the skill and the knowledge to put the COVID-19 scourge down for the count.

medical news, military news

Military to order vaccines

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine you’re serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Your commanding officer or the non-commissioned officer in charge of your unit notices your boots aren’t shined properly. He or she orders you to shine ’em up, make ’em look pretty, shine them so you can see your face reflected back at you.

You do what you’re told, right? It’s a lawful order … which is why they call them “orders.” You are required to follow all lawful orders.

So it is that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has declared that every member of the U.S. armed forces — all 1.4 million men and women — will be required to be vaccinated against the COVD-19 virus and the assorted variants that are making Americans sick. That, too, is a lawful order.

I applaud the defense secretary — a retired four-star Army general — for issuing this order. He knows of which he speaks.

Is this going to mean that every soldier, sailor, Marine, Coast Guardsman, airman or space guardian will follow those orders without challenging them? Oh, probably not. We do live in a weird world that politicizes everything.

If they refuse, then their senior officers and NCOs need to take matters into their own hands and force them to be vaccinated.

Then they should toss the proverbial book at them.

local news, medical news

Dallas school boss to Gov. Abbott: Take your order and …

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well, you know the rest of it.

Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa today well might have become the first domino to topple in the state’s effort to stop the spread of a killer virus among our public schools.

He said that effective Tuesday, all schools within the DISD will require everyone to wear masks while indoors. That means students, teachers, support staff, visitors. Everyone, man!

This is a big deal. Hinojosa’s order flies directly counter to an executive order that Gov. Greg Abbott issued that prohibits school districts from taking any additional measures to fight the virus.

I am going to stand with the superintendent on this one.

Hinojosa is taking an important step to protect the individuals for whom he must care. He said today that he realizes he is in for a fight. Gov. Abbott won’t like being told to stick his executive order where the sun don’t shine. My response? Too … damn … bad!

Might there be more independent school districts to follow suit. I surely hope so. As the grandfather of one third-grader who attends school in the Allen ISD, I want to implore that district’s administration to show the courage being exhibited in Dallas to order everyone to mask up — at least temporarily.

And spare me the crap/trash/nonsense about infringing on “individual rights.”

The ultimate end to this pandemic and the variants it has spawned surely are the vaccines. However, we can take other preventative measures — such as masking and maintaining our social distance — to stem the outbreak.

If we are not going to do so individually, then I have zero problem — none at all — with those who care for my loved one during the school day to take the steps they need to take to protect her.

medical news, national news

COVID verbal battle heats up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is getting into a nasty spat with a fellow who likely will seek to run for the office Biden occupies in 2024.

The president said this over the weekend about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: “The escalation of cases is particularly concentrated in states with low vaccination rates. Just two states, Florida and Texas, account for one-third of all new COVID-19 cases in the entire country. … Look, we need leadership from everyone. And if some governors aren’t willing to do the right thing to beat this pandemic, then they should allow businesses and universities who want to do the right thing to be able to do it.”

DeSantis fired back, suggesting — without evidence — that the COVID virus spike is caused by the president’s “open-border policy” and that refugees are bringing with them as they stream into the country illegally.

PolitiFact | Ron DeSantis’ effort to blame COVID-19 spread on migrants is short on evidence

Ah, yes. Politics arguably is the most infectious element in this discussion.

DeSantis said he doesn’t want to “hear a blip” from Biden about COVID until he controls the border.

Except for this little item: President Biden is correct to single out Texas and Florida as the two states producing the most COVID outbreaks since the arrival of the Delta variant … which came from India, which is nowhere close to Latin America.

Can’t we start pulling together for a change on fighting this virus? How about it?

medical news

We can turn the tide again

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I remain confident, despite the trend of recent weeks, that we can turn the tide once again and defeat the killer virus.

My confidence stems from the rhetoric coming from politicians on both sides of the great divide. Republicans have joined their Democratic colleagues in finally — finally! — urging Americans to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

What has been the impact? Well, we keep hearing in recent days that the vaccination rate is accelerating across the nation. Even in those so-called “red states” that have low rate of vaccinations already, states populated by Americans who swilled the Kool-Aid about the vaccine being unreliable and buying into the nutty notions of side effects that do not exist.

President Biden set a Fourth of July goal of having 70% of Americans vaccinated against the virus. We missed the mark. But not by much! We now have reached another benchmark, with 70% of us having received one of two required shots and with 50% of Americans fully vaccinated.

Still, the war against disinformation continues apace. This is where my confidence faces its strongest headwind.

The liars continue to outshout the rest of us. The liars are those who keep insisting that the vaccines developed by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson pose dire threats to our well-being. Again … they bring no proof of any of it. They simply spout and spew the garbage and others believe them.

Most of the members of my immediate and extended family are vaccinated. For that I am grateful. I also am grateful that those who have received the medication have resisted the trashy propaganda that comes from the MAGA crowd among others. To the members of my extended family who continue to buy into the garbage, my hope is that they eventually pull their heads out and realize the danger they pose not just to themselves, but to others as well … namely their children.

It will be a long slog through the thicket before we’re clear of this virus. My eternal optimism, although tested to the limit, remains strong that we’ll get through it … together!

local news, medical news

Gov. Hutchinson makes sense

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has given me a glimmer of hope that all is not lost on the Republican Party.

The GOP governor today talked about how he is allowing local communities to decide whether to require mask-wearing in light of the Delta variant surge that is plaguing his state.

Uhh, listen up, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Pay attention! Will you follow your fellow GOPer’s lead? Oh, probably not.

Hutchinson is walking back his earlier pledge to open his state up all the way. This morning, speaking in a TV interview, Hutchinson sounded reasonable, rational and resourceful as he sought to explain how he and his constituents are dealing with the ravages of the COVID-19 spike in infection, hospitalization and death.

The pattern is clear: the spike in Delta variant cases is most prevalent in low-vaccinated states. That includes Arkansas. And, oh yeah, Texas, too!

But … we have a bit more good news. The vaccination rate is ticking up in recent days. More Americans are realizing the folly of refusing the safe and effective vaccines. Many of them are making solemn vows from hospital beds to ensure their family members and other loved ones get vaccinated to avoid the misery that the pandemic has inflicted on them.

I just intend now to salute Gov. Hutchinson for speaking the truth to those who need to hear it.

Get vaccinated!

medical news

Smart guys get ignored?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I enjoy these messages that pop up on my various social media platforms. This one showed up today and I just had to share a thought or two about what it tells us.

It tells me that contemporary society has chosen to dumb itself down and believe the know-nothings who say what we want to hear and ignore the experts who tell us what we need to hear.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 4 million human beings worldwide, more than 600,000 of us in the United States. It’s dangerous, dammit! And we don’t need brainiacs to tell us that. The brainy corps of medical experts, physicians and infectious disease researchers are on board with what we need to know about the killer virus. It is that it could kill us if we don’t take proper precautions.

Oh, and we also need to get vaccinated to ward it off!

However, the public discourse is being drowned out by the dipsh**s who continue to insist that the experts are wrong. The know-nothings to whom I refer generally populate the right-wing airwaves and fill up space on right-wing publications.

Some of the more notable blowhards — Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson — can barely find their backsides with both hands. Yet their pontification is being taken as gospel by those who share their world view.

All the while, we hear from learned medical scholars — such as CDC director Rachelle Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci — that the virus and its attendant variants pose an imminent danger to us. The reaction among too many of us? Nothing, man!

The 45th president of the United States brought a lot of experts on board when the pandemic first took hold. They provided him with sound advice. He chose to ignore most of the advice given to him by the likes of Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, CDC director Robert Redfield and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. He called some of them “idiots.” He spoke the language of the fellow know-nothings.

They continue to outshout the actual experts at this moment. That is to their shame and their disgrace. It’s also to the disgrace of those who choose to heed the morons who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

You may count me among the know-nothings. Which is why I choose to listen to the advice of the experts.

medical news, national news

Too much to expect victory?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It likely was too much to expect a new president, operating with a new medical team would be able to declare victory against the COVID-19 pandemic virus.

President Biden took a lot of credit — perhaps a tad too much of it — for the distribution of vaccines developed by Big Pharma companies. He made bold promises, such as vaccinating 70 % of Americans by the Fourth of July.

It didn’t happen. Then came the emergence of the Delta pandemic variant. More Americans have been getting sick. More of them are dying from the variant.

However, I cannot yet expect a return to the dark days of a year ago. We have come too far from the abyss that opened up when Biden’s predecessor gave short shrift to the consequences of the virus. He said it would vanish magically. It was all “under control,” he said even as thousands of Americans were being stricken daily.

That president lost his re-election bid in 2020. The new guy promised a new day, a new approach, a greater effort to fight the pandemic and rid the nation of its scourge.

We made progress. Then … boom! The Delta variant arrived. Now we’re being advised to mask up again; to maintain “social distancing”; we’re also being advised in the strongest terms possible to get vaccinated.

As disappointing as this setback appears I am not going to despair. I am not going to consign myself and my family to another round of anxiety or misery.

I’ll just have to remind myself that we cannot spike any proverbial footballs until we get eradicate the virus — and all the variants it produces. I remain cautiously optimistic that we’ll get to that finish line … eventually.

What’s more, I will take some measure of comfort knowing that we are being led by a government chief executive who will tell us the truth as we continue this fight.

medical news

Biden goes to war against liars

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden today all but declared war on fellow Americans.

These are the idiots among us who continue to peddle misinformation about the vaccines developed to help fight the COVID-19 virus.

I am rooting for the president to win this war.

He is seeking to stem the infection caused by the Delta variant, an offshoot of the pandemic virus that so far has killed more than 600,000 Americans. The vaccines are safe. They are effective.

And, no, as Biden said, they weren’t “rushed” into production. They were developed rapidly, yes, but under strict federal medical rules and regulations. The “rushed” argument has become a talking point among the anti-vaxxers who concoct reasons to avoid getting inoculated against the virus. President Biden today sought to bat that bogus argument away.

Biden is not sounding like a desperate politician. He is sounding like a pol who is concerned about lies diverting our attention from the truth at hand. It is that virtually all the new Delta variant infections are among those who haven’t been vaccinated against the virus.

To be sure, there are the scattered reports of fully vaccinated Americans being stricken by the variant. However, the refusal among Americans far outpaces those reports and the president today called out those — namely on the right — who continue to foment lies about the vaccines.

President Biden faces a monstrous reality, which happens to be the gullibility of Americans who are too willing to accept the lies and turn their back on the truth. Biden spoke the truth today. He invoked his executive authority to ordering all occupants of federal buildings to be vaccinated; I understand that number of could run into the millions.

That’s all fine with me. Joe Biden inherited a nation in dire medical peril. He had hoped to declare victory against the pandemic. It’s too early for that moment. First, he has to quell the lying and dissembling that is putting Americans at risk.