Category Archives: medical news

medical news

Welcome, Secretary Becerra … now, get to work

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Xavier Becerra is going to do just fine as the nation’s newest secretary of health and human services.

He takes an otherwise obscure Cabinet post in a time of a national medical crisis. The pandemic is still around.

The 50-49 U.S. Senate vote to confirm came after some Senate Republicans bitched that the former California congressman and state attorney general lacks medical training. He isn’t a doctor, some of them said, which makes him “unqualified” for the HHS job.

What an utter crock of dookey!

Alex Azar was a drug company executive who preceded Becerra in this job. Was he qualified for the job?

GOP lawmakers are getting pretty damn clumsy in hoisting up these straw man arguments. Ben Carson became head of housing and urban development after spending a career as a renowned brain surgeon. Betsy DeVos led the education department despite having no hands-on experience with public education. Rex Tillerson served as secretary of state even though he earned his millions running a giant oil company. These are just four examples of Cabinet picks endorsed by Republicans during the Trump administration.

So now they’re holding President Biden’s HHS pick to a higher standard?

I want to reiterate something about Becerra: He served in Congress when the Obama administration sought to approve the Affordable Care Act. Then-Rep. Becerra played a key role in writing that legislation.

So, spare me the “he ain’t a doc” argument.

The man is qualified. He will do well in his new role leading the Department of Health and Human Services.

Let’s get busy, Mr. Secretary.

medical news

Politics overpowering pandemic battle

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the more astonishing aspects of this fight against the coronavirus pandemic — and there have been so many of them — has been the political tug-of-war over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 500,000-plus Americans.

On one side we have the MAGA-hat crowd, the folks who continue to stand with an ex-president who spent much of the previous year denying the pandemic was anything to cause worry. They oppose getting vaccinated.

It fell, then, on Dr. Anthony Fauci — the world’s leading infectious disease expert — to implore Donald Trump to encourage his minions to get vaccinated. The ex-president did so and for that I applaud him.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how vaccination protocols have become something to kick around like a proverbial political football.

The evidence of all three U.S. government-approved vaccines’ efficacy is overwhelming. They are helping curb the infection, hospitalization and death rates. Still, we hear reports of individuals declining to get vaccinated because of some lie that refuses to be exterminated that the vaccines aren’t working.

In a related matter, we also hear about individuals refusing to wear masks while doing business with companies that their customers to wear them. Did you see the video of the woman in Galveston getting arrested in a bank because she refused to mask up even though bank policy requires her to do so? She shouts idiotic cliches about her “personal liberty” being infringed by rules aimed at protecting her life and those with whom she comes into contact. Ridiculous!

If there is a sign that the politicization of society has veered out of control, I believe we are seeing it play out in real time … at this very moment. It has to stop!

medical news

Cheering is contagious

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All this back and forth among friends, acquaintances and even total strangers is amazing in the extreme.

I am referring to those who are using social media to proclaim that they have gotten vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Hey, I share their joy. I am vaccinated, too. So is my wife. Same for one of my sons; my other son has “antibodies” in his system, which tells me he must’ve caught the virus but didn’t show any symptoms.

This is a peculiar side effect of the pandemic response.

The vaccines are rolling out, tens of millions of doses at a time. Three big pharma companies have yanked out all the stops to deliver the vaccines in virtually no time. Operation Warp Speed kicked in and the drug makers delivered the goods.

I am just astonished at the enthusiasm we are expressing when we are able to obtain a vaccine. I cannot remember any time when public response to a crisis has reached this kind of level.

We are hearing the occasional grumbling, too. A member of my family had two vaccine appointments canceled when she was informed that she didn’t qualify under one of the two initial groups that were getting the shots. That changed today. She went to her local pharmacy and received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. What did she do? She called me to share the good news!

We’re getting giddy about the vaccine. I am going to wait anxiously for the time when we get word that we have reached the threshold of “herd immunity,” which is when a significant majority of Americans are inoculated.

If this initial reaction to the arrival of the vaccine is going to produce the kind of response I sense that we’re getting, well, then it’ll be Katie-bar-the-door when enough of us get inoculated against a disease that is still causing too much misery for us to cheer too loudly.

But I welcome the reaction. It’s as if we’re all having babies.

medical news

Fauci makes timely plea

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued a timely and seemingly authentic plea to the 45th president of the United States.

Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief medical adviser, has asked Donald J. Trump — who he describes as enormously popular among those who continue to follow him — to encourage his millions of supporters to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

This is just my view, but my hunch is that Trump isn’t likely to listen to too much that Fauci says about anything. I mean, he did call Fauci an “idiot” after the renowned infectious disease expert challenged an assertion that Trump had made.

Fauci is trying to de-politicize the vaccine debate. The Trumpsters keep resisting the vaccine. Other Americans are lining up to receive them. The infection rate is falling, as is the positivity test rate — and the death rate.

Indeed, we now know that Donald and Melania Trump received their vaccines in private just a few days before leaving the White House. The POTUS and the FLOTUS didn’t want to let it be known that they had gone against Donald Trump’s own stated resistance to the severity of the pandemic.

The beans have been spilled and Dr. Fauci is seeking ways to get to the millions of Americans who hang onto the goofy notion that the vaccine is going to harm them. Fauci and the many other scientists say they only will help us.

Any of them would be acceptable, Fauci said: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

I applaud Dr. Fauci for seeking to talk sense to those who at times seem to lack any sort of rational thought. If they hear from their hero/idol/cult leader that the vaccines are safe and effective, then perhaps we can accelerate the return to what we used to think of as “normal living.”

medical news, national news, State news

It isn’t ‘mislabeled!’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas two U.S. senators, Republicans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, voted against the COVID-19 relief bill, they say, because it is “mislabeled.”

They contend that it is too full of money that seeks to satisfy liberal/progressive interest groups and political activists.

Pardon my Greek, but these two alleged legislative representatives are full of sh**. 

Is the bill the perfect remedy to help Americans back from the pandemic precipice? No. However, it does contain sufficient help for those who have suffered grievous economic hardship. Moreover, it sets aside money to continue the development of vaccines that are rolling out as we sit here that will help inoculate more of us against the virus.

How many ways do we have to explain how this process works to the ideologues/demagogues who populate the supposedly loyal opposition to President Biden?

I keep hearing the canard about how only 9 percent of the money goes directly to COVID-19 relief. That’s another crock of fecal matter. CNN.com provides a link that explains what is in the bill.

What’s in the Covid relief bill – CNNPolitics

If you look at the items lined out, you will understand that the word “directly” is critical. I concede that not all the funds go directly to aid with COVID-related relief. However, much of the money serves the purpose, such as nutrition aid, or housing aid, or tax credits for individuals and families.

The impact of the pandemic has been sweeping and it has hit Americans thoroughly. That is why President Biden insisted that Congress should “go big” in seeking relief for Americans. He settled on $1.9 trillion in relief. I get that it isn’t cheap. However, I am willing to endorse this notion because of my belief that the federal government should answer the call when emergency strikes.

Last time I gave it any thought, I consider the killer pandemic a first-rank national emergency that needs a proportional response.

Sens. Cruz and Cornyn — and the rest of their GOP colleagues in both congressional chambers — are on the wrong side of this debate.

medical news

Let’s not get ahead of this?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If I were to express a nagging anxiety about the “good news” we keep hearing about the possible/potential end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that we need to avoid getting ahead of ourselves.

Good news is coming at us by waves these days.

COVID infections are declining; so are hospitalizations; death rates are falling.

Are we getting complacent? I hope that is not the case.

Yet, that is my fear as governors around the nation — including Texas’s Greg Abbott — make these bold declarations while removing statewide mandates for Americans to wear masks. Sure, Abbott and others tell us to take all the necessary precautions, such as practice social distancing, washing our hands, keep sanitizer handy (and use it!). Are we heeding the advice or are we listening only to what we perceive to be the end of a national nightmare?

We must not get ahead of the scientists who are working their butts off searching for more cures for the disease that has killed 530,000-plus Americans and sickened millions more of us.

Hey, I want a return to normal, too. I want to see family and friends more frequently. I want to spend more quality time with my granddaughter.

However, I do not want others to put all of that in peril by declaring a premature victory in this war against an invisible killer.

medical news

CDC offers ‘good news’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This is “good news” coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?

I’ll be candid: The news makes me a bit nervous.

The CDC says it’s OK for those of us who are “fully vaccinated” to meet with others who also are fully vaccinated against the COVID virus without any restrictions. You know what I mean: no masks, no imperative to practice social distancing, those kinds of things.

Maybe I should just accept CDC director Dr. Rachelle Walensky’s word for it, that it’s safe to hug on others who’ve been totally vaccinated. Then again, I remain worried about just how do we know with any certainty that others have received all the shots they need to declare themselves inoculated against the killer virus.

The media are heralding this news as further evidence that we are turning the corner against the pandemic. I hope we are and, yes, I believe we are in the midst of turning that corner.

I just can’t shake the heebie-jeebies I feel when I hear this kind of reporting out of the CDC.

For now I believe I am going to continue to keep my distance from a good bit of American society.

local news, medical news, State news

Safety trumps personal liberty

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is getting plenty of push back from critics of his decision to rescind the mask-wearing order he issued when the COVID pandemic broke out.

Others, though, are backing the governor’s decision. I hear it on the news, that they are relishing the notion of exercising “personal liberty” in choosing to go without a mask when they enter public places.

OK. I want to make a critical point.

I am all in favor of personal liberty. As an American citizen, I cherish it as much as the next red-blooded patriot. However, personal liberty should not trump community health and well-being. That is my way of saying that the mask mandate — along with social distancing and other activities — protect us all from the spread of a virus that is killing Americans to this day.

I want to be free of being told to wear a mask. I want a return to being able to stand next to strangers in the grocery line, or sitting next to someone at the movie theater, or going to an entertainment event and being able to yell at the top of my lungs without fogging up my glasses because of the mask.

But … first things first. We have to grab the virus with a stronger grip than we have at this time. More of us are getting vaccinated daily. We are getting closer each day to that thing they call “herd immunity.” But we ain’t there yet.

So, spare me the “personal liberty” canard. I don’t buy it when your liberty puts my family and me in potentially mortal danger.

medical news, State news

Abbott taking deserved hits

(Bob Daemmrich/Pool Photo via AP)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This needs to be said.

President Biden overreacted by declaring that the governors of Texas and Mississippi were engaging in “Neanderthal thinking” when they lifted mask-wearing orders while seeking to return their states’ business community to full occupancy status.

Yes, we’re fighting a pandemic. We need to maintain those orders. I agree that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision was ill-considered and, yes, he was one of the “Neanderthals” to whom the president referred.

Still, I wish that President Biden wouldn’t have used that particular description.

However, I’ll endorse the president’s view that Abbott shouldn’t have done what he did. Abbott has pulled back from previous orders, only to watch the infection, hospitalization and death rates from the COVID virus spike in Texas.

I am going to pray hard that we don’t see yet another repeat of those prior mistakes.

medical news, military news

VA deserves shout out

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough has earned a shout out from one of his constituents.

That would be yours truly. Me. Myself.

He said today in the White House press briefing room that more than 1.4 million veterans have received vaccinations to protect them against the COVID-19 coronavirus. Of that total, he said, more than half of us have received both doses of the vaccine, meaning that we’re totally inoculated (or we ought to hope for the best) against a virus that has killed more than 500,000 fellow Americans.

I was able to get vaccinated through the North Texas Veterans Medical Center. The first vaccine required a bit of a wait, but I could spare an hour of my time. The second one was slick and smooth; in and out in 20 minutes.

As a proud Army veteran who signed up with the VA some years ago, I want to thank the Department of Veterans Affairs for the great care it has given me during my enrollment.

I get that Secretary McDonough has been on the job only a short time. He’s the man standing watch now, so he gets the shout out, as do his predecessors.

Thank you.