Category Archives: medical news

medical news

Trump now fighting openly with CDC boss

Welcome to the fray, Dr. Robert Redfield.

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on one day that the coronavirus pandemic could spring up again this fall and/or winter and it could be worse than what we’ve experienced already.

Then the nation’s top politician, Donald John Trump, sought to dispute the newspaper report that quoted Dr. Redfield.

Oh, but then Dr. Redfield said the Washington Post quoted him correctly, that, yep, he made that statement about a possible return of the viral infection that’s already killed nearly 50,000 Americans.

I am going to side with the doctor. The politician is looking only after his own political future. The CDC boss is motivated more by caring for the rest of us.

Donald Trump — as I have stated already many times in this blog — needs to keep his mouth shut. He is putting us in danger. This is a dangerous individual.

medical news

‘Tyranny’ is not the enemy; the enemy is a killer disease

The nimrod in this picture has it wrong, along with the rest of the nimrods who protested the restrictions imposed on Virginia residents by that state’s governor, Ralph Northam.

The enemy that should arouse this clown’s ire isn’t “tyranny.” It is a disease that could kill this clown if he isn’t careful. Thus, Gov. Northam as well as many other governors has imposed restrictions that seek to protect the people he was elected to serve.

Of course, we’re hearing from our share of dips***s too in Texas. Some of them descended on Austin to protest the measures that Gov. Greg Abbott has imposed. Abbott is about to lift some of them, but he insists that he will rely on “data and doctors” to guide his decisions.

I remain committed instead to protecting my health along with my wife’s health, not to mention the health of my children, their loved ones, my grandkids. I also want to add that a significant majority of Americans oppose any lifting of the restrictions until there is certainty that the coronavirus is on the wane; we aren’t there yet.

Do I want to return to some semblance of normal? Sure I do. I also happen to believe in good government and my definition of good government compels elected officials to take occasionally dramatic measures to protect us against disease. The coronavirus that has killed nearly 45,000 Americans is deadly in the extreme.

Some of the protesters are marching under signs that say “Give me liberty or give me death.” Think about the hideous irony of that message. If someone wants “liberty” as defined by protesters’ demands that governors relax the restrictions they have imposed, they well could also get “death” if the restrictions are taken away prematurely.

Liberty and death in this context are not mutually exclusive, my fellow Americans … if you get my drift.

medical news

Hell freezes over: Trump tells the truth!

I never thought this day would come, but it did … yesterday, during a White House campaign rally-style riff by the president of the United States who supposedly was briefing the nation about the health outbreak that has gripped the world.

A reporter asked Donald Trump whether he declined to appoint U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, to join a task force to reopen the country in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic out of anger at Romney’s criticism of him.

Trump said he is “not a fan of Mitt Romney. I don’t want his advice.”

So, the answer is “yes,” Trump is still angry at Romney because the Republican senator voted to convict the president of abuse of power during the Senate impeachment trial.

See what I mean? Trump actually told the truth that he does hold a grudge against Romney!

This fit of truth-telling isn’t worth any sort of praise, given the smallness and pettiness it represents about what passes for Trump’s thought pattern.

medical news, national news, political news

Protests mar effort to save lives

Economic hardship has run face-first into physical hardship.

Governors across the nation have imposed stay at home, shelter in place and social distancing orders in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Their intent is to save lives, to prevent the virus from infecting people and exposing them to possible death.

These actions have invoked clear economic consequences. Business is hurting badly. People have lost their jobs. Businesses have gone under; those that survive are doing so … barely.

Now we see protests mounting in capital cities. Americans want their governors to rescind those orders. They want the nation to get back to work.

And then we have Donald John Trump weighing in with his ridiculous Twitter tantrums and tirades, sowing the seeds of discontent.

He sent out messages that urge us to “LIBERATE” three state: Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan. The Twitter mantra takes aim at states governed by Democrats. Our pseudo-Republican president wants them scorned by their residents. He wants those residents to vote for him this November when Trump stands for re-election, most likely against Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

While everyone understands that dissent is as American as any political act imaginable, we also must understand that dissent must have limits. People’s physical well-being sits squarely on the other side of that barrier.

So, when those folks protest against governors’ orders to protect them against a killer virus, and when Donald Trump tweets his desire to “LIBERATE” certain states, this great American concept of political dissent puts Americans’ health — and their very lives — in potentially mortal danger.

medical news, national news

Trump seeks to lie his way to re-election

Donald Trump lied his way to election as president of the United States in 2016.

He wants to employ the same tactic as he campaigns for re-election in 2020.

But as saying goes, facts can be stubborn things. Given the president’s abysmal response to the coronavirus pandemic, this individual is facing a set of facts that — one can hope — stand directly in the way of his attempt to lie his way into another four years as our head of state.

It’s all on video.

The virus broke out in Asia. A few individuals brought the deadly virus with them into the United States. Trump dismissed the early signs. He told us we had 15 cases and that they would vanish just like that. Then he continued to deny the existence of the pandemic. He called it a “Democrat hoax” while bellowing at a campaign rally. The federal government stood idly by while governors began the battle against the deadly killer.

But now he keeps telling us what a great job he did. He lies without understanding the profound irony of his untruths. Trump denies what the whole world heard him say in real time. He breezes past the “Democrat hoax” nonsense.

All the while, he continues to blame others for their alleged failures. He tosses out baseless accusations of hospitals “hoarding” masks and ventilators. He blames President Obama for enacting rules and regulations that hinder the response.

He denies that his office disbanded the pandemic response office within the White House.

All of it — every single bit of it — are proven facts that not even the Liar in Chief should be able to deny. Rest assured that he will seek to deny what the whole world knows happened, what the world knows he said, what the world has witnessed in real time.

He said he has “total authority” to tell governors what to do. Then he backed off, announcing guidelines he said would enable governors to use their own discretion.

See where this is going? Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing from day to day. He lacks any understanding of how government works and yet he tells us that he’s on top of the situation.

Still another lie!

What’s most maddening of all is that he has gotten away with it. Until now … or so many of us hope.

medical news, national news

Will POTUS seek to take credit for states’ pandemic-reduction success?

Donald John Trump’s well-known penchant for clumsy incoherence is likely to present itself when more of our states report an actual decline in the hospitalization caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has delivered some good news on that front. My concern, as always, is how center on how Donald Trump might seek to take credit where he doesn’t deserve it.

The national response, such as it has developed, has been pitiful and pathetic. Trump claimed to have “total authority” over every decision made at the state level; then he backed off that statement, releasing a blueprint for guidelines to relax certain restrictions that governors could follow if they wish.

He has downplayed the impact of the pandemic, then declared he knew it was a pandemic before anyone else knew it. Trump has accused hospitals of hoarding masks and ventilators. He has scolded governors, calling one of them a “snake.” Trump has accused Democrats of playing politics. He has blasted the media for reporting “fake news.”

Donald Trump has contradicted analyses given by his top medical experts.

Meanwhile, governors have been left to employ their own devices to battle the pandemic. The epicenter of the outbreak in this country, which started in Washington but moved across the nation to New York, has caused untold heartache and misery.

Now we’re beginning to see more than a glimmer of hope that social distancing and other measures enacted by governors are starting to pay dividends, as Andrew Cuomo has suggested.

I just don’t want Donald Trump to get in the way of this message. I do not want to hear this Bloviator/Braggart in Chief take credit he doesn’t deserve. I want him to keep his yapper shut.

I know I am asking for too much. I just have to get it off my chest.

media news, medical news

Pandemic coverage = failed prevention policy

Something occurred to me this week when I began reading the Dallas Morning News that my carrier tossed onto my driveway.

The newspaper’s front page story count was devoted totally to the coronavirus pandemic. Then I looked at some of the inside pages. Multiple pages contained full coverage of the pandemic. The editorial page also had many letters to the editor and opinion columns devoted to the pandemic.

Then the light bulb flashed on: When have we ever witnessed such wall-to-wall, 24/7, nonstop, relentless coverage of a single issue? I guess the last issue that did that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. That’s how big this pandemic has become.

Why mention this? Well, I also remember earlier this year when Donald Trump was downplaying the onset of the virus that he was highly critical of previous administrations’ efforts at handling earlier health crises. He mentioned the Ebola virus and the H1N1 outbreaks that dogged the Obama administration. He exerted a bit of effort to tell us that in his view President Obama did a lousy job of corralling those crises.

OK, but … did those crises dominate the media coverage — not to mention the top of everyone’s awareness — the way this pandemic has done? No. They didn’t.

What does that tell me? It tells me that those crises either weren’t as widespread as the coronavirus pandemic has become and that the Obama administration did a good job of stemming their impact on the population.

It also symbolizes and illustrates one of the fundamental points that Trump critics — such as yours truly — have made all along, which is that Donald Trump has fumbled bigly in organizing his administration’s response to the crisis.

I have to circle back to something Dr. Anthony Fauci said, which was that had there been a concerted early effort to “mitigate” the effects of the disease that we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re in at this moment.

So, here we are … with a disease overwhelming the media’s daily coverage of the news of the day. That, I submit, is a consequence of an inept governmental response.

medical news, science news

Politicians should cease setting back-to-normal schedules

The feeble efforts by human beings to predict when they’ll be able to declare victory in a fight against a deadly virus make me want to … pull my hair out by the roots.

One such human being happens to be the president of the United States, who keeps insisting he has a preferred date in mind when he can start relaxing guidelines brought to bear by the coronavirus pandemic.

How many times must we tell Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump what should be patently obvious? Politicians cannot dictate to a deadly virus when it should stop sickening and killing human beings! We need science to determine when that will occur. We need human beings with deep scientific backgrounds and experience battling infectious disease to take the lead on this endeavor.

Donald Trump wants to establish some “flexible guidelines” that would dictate whether or to lift some of the stay at home directives that governors have issued. He keeps saying he wants a May 1 deadline to reopen the economy; then he talks about some states loosening restrictions even sooner than that!

C’mon! Let’s quit this game-playing!

We need science-based facts. We need to stop trying to outmaneuver a virus. Here is one more obvious fact that still needs to be brought up once more: A killer virus is no respecter of human deadlines, human wishes and human goals.

medical news

Waiting for the escape hatch to open

I believe I understand why the current worldwide health crisis is so unprecedented and devastating in its scope.

Let me say first that I totally understand the illness and death it has caused, creating untold misery, heartache and mourning. Its victims die alone, as hospitals cannot allow loved ones near them to hold their hands, whisper their love into their ears or just to act as comforters in time of pain and peril.

The unique quality of this coronavirus pandemic rests in the absence of any escape hatch for us to get away from the onslaught of bad news we are being forced to consume from our news networks.

Professional sports? College sports? Any sort of entertainment that allows us to sit among crowds of people who are cheering at the same performance? That’s all been put on ice.

Pro basketball and hockey has been shelved. Major League Baseball’s season has been delayed until only God knows when. The Summer Olympics in Tokyo has been postponed for an entire year … maybe even longer than that. College football is supposed to start later this summer, but they might not kick it off until much later.

New York’s Broadway theaters are closed. Movie theaters everywhere are closed, too.

So, we’re stuck. At home. Our governor asks us to stay put. He’ll get back to us soon to tell us where we might be able to go.

Some of us are going batty looking at the same walls for weeks on end. To be honest, we’re doing OK in our home. My wife and I happen to like each other’s company; at least I can speak for myself anyway on that matter.

This pandemic, though, is unprecedented simply by virtue of all the activities it has been on the back shelf. We are waiting now for an escape hatch to open.

medical news

Pelosi speaks great truth about relying on knowledge, facts

The blistering critique of Donald Trump delivered by Nancy Pelosi clearly had one major goal, which was to point out — in Pelosi’s view — the ineptitude demonstrated by Trump in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the speaker of the House of Representatives’ letter to congressional Democrats also spoke to a larger issue that bears a brief examination. It is that we need to rely heavily on the knowledge of individuals educated specifically in the field of fighting the pandemic that is sweeping around the world.

Yes, the speaker spoke of Trump’s lies, his ignorance, incompetence, his confusion, chaos, mixed messaging, bullying … all of that and more. The president displays it in abundance every time he stands before a microphone and talks about the pandemic.

He politicizes this crisis in ways that sicken many of us. The issue at hand is the safety of human beings. Americans are longing for a president who can speak with authority on his caring for his countrymen and women. Donald Trump cannot exhibit that caring. He simply is not wired that way.

So we are left to depend on the experts. Trump has no shortage of them at his disposal. You’ve seen them and heard them. They are learned men and women who’ve spent their entire professional lives studying and battling these diseases. They are the individuals who need to be heard. Not the politicians … and damn sure not the nation’s top pol, the president of the United States.

Let me be clear about this point: Not every politician speaks with the vacuous volume that comes from Donald Trump. We’ve heard from governors and mayors who express sincere empathy with those who are suffering. However, these individuals are not inclined to delve into scientific details about which they are not as informed as the experts with whom they are surrounded. One cannot say such a thing about the president who continues to insist he knows far more than he does.

So, with that I want to suggest that the greater truth that came from Nancy Pelosi should resonate with all Americans who want to hear unvarnished facts about the fight against coronavirus. They won’t get them from the Politician in Chief.