Category Archives: medical news

medical news, national news

Trump was joking about ‘less testing’? Sure, I believe it … hah!

Donald John “Knee-Slapper in Chief” Trump has no discernible sense of humor that any of us can detect.

He rarely guffaws. From what I have read he doesn’t watch movies. He lacks any semblance of self-deprecation. However, the dude does have this annoying habit of relying on others’ excuses for the stupidity that flows out of his pie hole.

He told that sparse gathering in Tulsa, Okla., over the weekend that we ought to have “less testing” of the COVID-19 virus because it would drive down the number of people being infected. I saw him say it. He didn’t wink at the audience. He didn’t say, “Just kidding, folks.” He let the idiocy stand.

Oh, but then comes that trade “expert” who comments on matters far from his wheelhouse. Peter Navarro said Trump’s remark was “clearly tongue in cheek.”

We’ve heard this dodge before from Trumpkins who seek to cover The Donald’s ample backside. He blurts out something stupid and his team of sycophants says, “Aww, he was just kidding. Making a joke. He was being ‘sarcastic.'”

We are asked to buy into that baloney. This guy says so many stupid utterances, he lies with such astonishing frequency that we cannot believe anything, not a single thing that he says. Nor can we believe the efforts of his team to cover his a** when he blurts the idiocy out.

This is the same guy who said he preferred that a cruise ship full of passengers remain stranded off shore because letting them come ashore would drive up his COVID-19 infection “numbers.” He said that, too, with a straight face!

So we’re asked to believe that this Tulsa trash talk about “less testing” to detect the killer virus is a joke?

medical news, national news

‘A perfect storm’ brewing in Tulsa?

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I am married to a wise woman.

She appreciates the concern that the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down the economy. She wants the economy to restart as much as the next person. She also wants it to be done with care about people’s health, indeed their very lives.

It is with that notion that she said recently, “The economy won’t revive itself when we’re all hospitalized … or dead!”

You got that right, sweetheart!

Accordingly, the health experts who are seeking to get Donald Trump’s attention are yelling at the top of their lungs that Trump’s planned rally in Tulsa this weekend is a “perfect storm” for infection from the killer virus. They are beseeching the Trump team to postpone the rally. They are concerned that packing 19,000 people into a confined space, giving them a chance to scream their joy at Trump’s idiotic ramblings (without wearing masks) is going to expose thousands of them to potential illness from COVID-19.

As PBS noted: “As best I can tell, there’s nowhere in the world that’s doing large indoor events,” said state Rep. Monroe Nichols, a Democrat who represents Tulsa. “Definitely not events with 20,000 people in the middle of a global pandemic. It’s just not a thing.”

Trump’s rally Saturday is “a worst case scenario. It’s a perfect storm for the further spread of the virus,” Nichols added.

Tulsa is the place that is doing a “large indoor event.” What’s more, local officials report a serious spike already under way in Oklahoma.

Is this smart? No. It is the depth of stupidity.

medical news, military news

‘Cause for celebration’? Really?

(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Vice President Mike Pence is proud to wear the dunce cap that designates him as Donald Trump’s No. 1 sycophant.

Take, for instance, what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, where he declared that “under … Trump’s leadership” the rate of infection by COVID-19 in the United States should be a “cause for celebration.”

Huh? Is the VPOTUS out of his mind? Well, yes. He is!

If he’s going to cite national causes for celebration, he needs to hold up France, Italy and Spain. Those countries have actually “flattened the curve” and are seeing serious declines in the infection and death rates from the pandemic.

How about Greece and Taiwan, which took seriously proactive measures at the onset of the pandemic and have experienced hardly any of the heartache that has occurred in the United States?

Oh, no! The VP has swilled Trump’s pandemic Kool-Aid and declared we should be “celebrating.” Earth to Mikey: We’re getting sicker here; many states are seeing serious increases in infection and hospitalization.

Pence wrote: “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and the courage and compassion of the American people, our public health system is far stronger than it was four months ago, and we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.”

No. We are not “winning the fight.”

medical news

Flabbergasted at POTUS’s declaration of ‘victory’ against COVID-19

I cannot wrap my arms — let alone my noggin — around the notion that Donald Trump keeps harping on that declares some form of “victory” against the COVID-19 killer virus.

How in the name of medical expertise does this clown get away with making such idiotic declarations we have whipped the virus, that it’s all but gone?

Texas is among more than a dozen states that is seeing a dramatic spike, an increase, in the number of infections. Yet our governor, Republican Greg Abbott, says he sees no compelling need to put the brakes on the state reopening. Oh, no. Now he’s throwing out blame at 20-somethings for refusing to use proper social distancing methods and declining to wear masks in public for the increase.

Yumpin’ yiminy, man! We aren’t winning anything as it regards this virus. Medical gurus tell us there might be a second “wave” of infection that will make the first wave look like a Scout outing. Our beaches have been declared open and tourists are flocking to the coast with little or zero regard to social distancing “recommendations.” Is it any surprise that we’d see a spike in infection and hospitalization in Texas?

Still, Donald Trump tells us we’re whipping that Bad Boy. His loyal followers believe him! The basis for his victory declaration? He doesn’t have any. He points to his own vacuous skull and says he just knows these things.

No. Donald Trump doesn’t know whether to sh** or shine his shoes.

I think we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along. We’re not going to mingle among crowds. No thanks, Mr. POTUS. You can declare victory to your heartless soul’s content. We cannot believe the words of a pathological liar.

medical news, national news

Is health a campaign issue?

Donald John Trump seems to take some measure of joy in poking fun at opponents’ medical health, usually with baseless allegations that they possess limited “stamina” or “mental capacity.”

He did so in 2016 while running against Hillary Clinton; he is likely to do it again in 2020 while campaigning against Joseph Biden.

OK, then. Is it fair to ask whether Donald Trump is in top form?

I ask because of reports that came out of his West Point, N.Y., commencement appearance before graduating U.S. Military Academy cadets. You likely have seen the video of Trump lifting a glass of water to his mouth; he started to hoist the glass with one hand, then had to guide it toward his mouth with both hands. Then came his exit from the podium, down a ramp in which Trump seemed unsure on his feet, walking extra-gingerly.

Do you recall when Trump went to the hospital for an undisclosed matter? He hasn’t spoken publicly about why he showed up for that event; nor has the White House issued a statement. Hmm. Makes me wonder whether Donald Trump is as fit as White House docs have proclaimed him to be.

It also makes me wonder whether Donald Trump is hiding something from the public.

If he is healthy, then there needs to be a complete release of his medical records, replete with exams from physicians who will attest to his good health.

However, if there are medical issues to be revealed, then we need to know that, too.

If Trump is going to keep his medical condition from Americans, then he ought to keep his trap shut about the medical health of his foes.

crime news, medical news, national news

If we stop testing? What?

Donald Trump shot off his pie hole again today about the coronavirus pandemic, once more seeking to downplay the misery and mayhem it has caused in the United States of America.

“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” Trump said during a White House event highlighting administration actions to help senior citizens.

Good grief! That idiocy remains me of an earlier moronic statement from the late Marion Barry, once the mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry was asked to comment on the hideous crime rate in our nation’s capital city. He responded, and this is paraphrasing what he said:

If you take away the murder rate, we don’t have such a bad crime problem.

medical news, national news

Texas ought to follow Oregon’s lead

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I have intimate knowledge and familiarity with two of our nation’s 50 states. I was born, came of age and grew up in Oregon; I have lived in Texas for most of my life, 36 out of 70 years on Earth.

Oregon is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 infections and is slamming a halt to its plan to reopen the state’s business community. Texas also is experiencing a spike, setting infection and death records daily, but it is moving ahead with its phased reopening.

Hmm. I believe Oregon has it correct and that Texas is reacting badly. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he sees no real need to scale back, let alone shut down, the state’s reopening. Why? Because the state has no shortage of intensive care unit beds in hospitals, according to Abbott.

Oregon has adopted a go-slow approach to this pandemic. Accordingly, Oregon has experienced a much lower per capita infection and death rate than many states. Texas cannot make that claim.

According to the Texas Tribune: The number of available beds is seen as a key gauge for the state’s ability to handle a potential surge in coronavirus cases, and Abbott has said the hospitalization rate — the proportion of infected Texans who are requiring hospitalization — is a benchmark he’s closely monitoring. That number has trended slowly downward since April and was just over 8% on Friday.

I continue to believe the state is moving too quickly to return to what some Texans hope is “normal” business and recreational activity.

Hey, I want this to end as much as the next guy. I want to return to regular activity. I am tired of wearing a mask when I mingle with others at the grocery store. I am sick of slathering sanitizer on my hands whenever I touch door handles, fuel pumps and shopping carts.

I also do not want my family members exposed to a virus that could do them serious harm. I want the state to take greater care than it is already doing to help ensure that they remain safe.

medical news

This isn’t ‘success’ in COVID fight

Donald Trump keeps yapping about the “fantastic” job he and his administration have done and are doing to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Hmm. I looked at some numbers compiled by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of this very day:

  • The world has logged 7.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The United States reports 2.04 cases. The United States comprises about 5 percent of the world population, but we have reported nearly 30 percent of the world total of infection.
  • Earth reports 413,854 deaths from the killer virus. The U.S. total is 114,452. That’s 27 percent of the world total, again in a country that comprises about 5 percent of the world population.

That’s success? That is a “fantastic” job?

No. Neither is true. What is true is that Donald Trump’s pledge to protect Americans against all our adversaries, even those we cannot see, has gone unfulfilled.

Yet the Imbecile in Chief keeps insisting he is doing so well that we simply must send him back to the presidency for another four years.

Aye, caramba! Perish the thought.

Those numbers all by themselves tell me he is failing the fundamental test of presidential leadership. I will concede there might be a discrepancy in the reporting of illness in some of places on Earth. Indeed, I am willing to argue that even in the United States — the most advanced nation on the planet — infection and death rates likely are underreported, too.

We are failing — not succeeding — in the fight against COVID-19.

medical news

Goodbye to a social custom

This damn global pandemic is claiming many social customs along with the human beings it is sickening and, tragically, killing.

I refer to one of them: shaking of hands when you greet friends.

Doctors and assorted other medical experts tell us that handshakes are being put aside while the world fights against the global viral infection that has killed 110,000-plus Americans.

This disturbs me. I am a hand-shaker. I enjoy greeting old friends and making new friends with a hearty handshake. I consider my handshake to be firm, but not crushing. I expect the same from those I meet for the first time or those with whom I reconnect.

We’re left now with “fist bumps” and “elbow bumps” and waving at each other from across the room. My wife and I ventured to Amarillo recently over the Memorial Day weekend. I had hoped to see old friends while we were there. I got cold feet. The instances of viral infections in Randall and Potter counties made me jittery. Thus, I was unwilling to see old friends, offer a handshake or an embrace.

This fist- and elbow-bumping ain’t my style, man.

The latest edition of the AARP Bulletin arrived this week and it tells us that the custom of shaking hands, which dates back to ancient Greece, is a goner … at least for well past the foreseeable future. AARP quotes Harvard University epidemiologist William Hanage, who recommends we greet each other with a “sanitary Star Trek salute and a hearty ‘Live long and prosper.'”

The pandemic, says Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, has created the “single greatest disruption of our lifetime.”

So, you thought it was only a handshake, right? Hardly. Get ready for the “new normal.”

medical news

Restrictions fall away, infections keep climbing

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The trend is troublesome … in my humble view, but that isn’t stopping Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from proceeding quickly to reopen the state, which has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Abbott has announced the next phase of the state’s reopening, all the while Texas is recording an increase in infections from the killer virus. The Texas Tribune reports some troubling numbers, all of which tell my wife and me to keep doing what we’re doing, which is to stay home and venture out only when we absolutely must.

As the Tribune reports: Throughout the state, the number of new cases reported each day has grown from an average of about 1,081 during the week ending May 24 to about 1,527 in the past week. (Public health data varies day to day, so officials use a seven-day rolling average to better capture trends over time.)

The 14-day trend line shows new infections in Texas have risen about 71% in the past two weeks. Although confirmed infections have increased across the state, hot spots like state prisons and meatpacking plants, which have recently been the sites of mass or targeted testing, are responsible for a portion of the increase, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Yikes, man!

I want to stipulate that I am among those who wants the state to reopen, but only as soon as it is prudent and healthy. I do not want to become a casualty in this fight; of course, that’s no flash as no one wants to become sick from COVID-19. I am just troubled by the steepening infection rate in our state, indeed in Collin County.

Meanwhile, we keep getting pressure from on high — namely the White House — to speed up the resumption of “normal” business and recreational activity. Donald Trump is shopping around for a site to stage the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention. He wants that big crowd to cheer his nomination, exposing every one of the participants in whatever arena opens up to being infected by the virus. Baloney!

This kind of foolishness is playing out in our public parks, in our eating establishments as Texans are increasingly tossing caution aside just because the governor says it’s OK to do so.

It’s ridiculous. And frightening.