Category Archives: medical news

local news, medical news

And now, a word to the hoarders out there

It’s not easy to say this, but it appears that panic has set in among many Americans. What’s more, the panic is utterly needless.

And … it is thoughtless.

I’ve been to the neighborhood supermarket here in Princeton, Texas and have noticed empty shelves that are supposed to be full of certain paper products. But those products are gone, apparently scarfed up by shoppers who have pushed the panic button as the nation battles the coronavirus pandemic.

Judy Woodruff, the PBS NewsHour anchor, summed up nicely on Friday the senselessness of the hoarding. Other broadcast journalists have issued similar messages.

Woodruff implored viewers to avoid hoarding toilet tissue, paper towels, napkins, sanitary wipes and hand sanitizer. Why the message? Woodruff noted what should be obvious, but isn’t: Some of us are less able to go shopping; they need these items, too. So, her message was a simple one: Think of those who are physically unable to shop the way many others are able to do.

I’ll make this observation as well: Doctors tell us that soap and water cleans our hands just as efficiently as sanitizer; we’ve got plenty of soap and we damn sure have enough water to go around.

Princeton isn’t that big of a community; we’ve got roughly 12,000 to 15,000 residents, according to city officials’ estimates. So it boggles my mind that so many of these products would vanish at this moment.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for the state. The declaration is intended to mobilize first responders and health care providers to the potential for a dramatic increase in cases involving Texans afflicted by the coronavirus. County officials are limiting crowd sizes at public events. Officials at all levels are warning us to maintain proper “social distance” to avoid possible exposure to the virus.

The messages we are hearing from every level of government — even from the slow-responding feds — is that we need not panic. Should we be concerned? You bet. My family is concerned.

Panic-buying, though, results in unnecessary and thoughtless shortages of essential products.

Let’s all take a breather. Let us deal forthrightly with the pandemic. Panic won’t solve anything. It only worsens matters.

medical news

Yearning for a POTUS who can be trusted

The doubting, the questioning and the suspicion about the president of the United States never ends.

Donald Trump’s relentless lying about the coronavirus pandemic has become, if you’ll please pardon the intended pun, almost an epidemic of its own.

His downplaying of the crisis initially was bad enough. His declaration about the alleged ease of obtaining tests to determine exposure matched it. Then came the televised speech from the Oval Office, a venue reserved only for the most serious of matters. Trump bungled that, too, by declaring a travel ban, but failing to tell us that U.S. citizens who were in Europe would be able to return home.

None of this, of course, is surprising to millions of Americans … such as me. We have doubted this individual’s veracity at every turn. The Washington Post tally of lies/falsehoods/misstatements/prevarication is now past 17,000 — and counting! And that’s just in a single term, the end of which is nearly a year out!

Donald Trump is failing this critical test of presidential leadership. He has piled too many lies all around him to be able to climb toward any level of credibility. The lying has been non-stop, incessant since the moment he became a politician. He sought his first-ever public office — the presidency — by telling us a lie about how he became a zillionaire: He called himself “self-made,” but he lied about that! The lying hasn’t stopped.

So here is facing the worst crisis — one not of his making — of his presidency and his hideous record of lying has turned us all into a nation of skeptics. We can’t trust a single word that comes from this fellow. It’s even come to doubting the veracity of the White House announcement that he has been tested for the coronavirus.

So, the crisis will worsen. We’ll hear from medical experts, the truth tellers who surround the president. We’ll also hear from Donald Trump. I, though, will be among those who cannot trust his word.

medical news

Dr. Fauci is everywhere, which is a good thing

Holy smokes, man! Every time I changed the channel this morning looking for a Sunday news show to watch, there he was: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Trump administration’s chief medical expert dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci repeated himself, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hear more from him, given that Donald Trump cannot tell the truth about anything, even when it concerns life and death issues. So, we get to hear from the premier epidemiologist on the planet.

His primary message? We had better prepare to “hunker down” for the foreseeable future as doctors, scientists and others look for a way to mitigate the spread of the potentially deadly virus.

Hunker down, eh? Got it, doc. Will do.

My wife and I are making changes in our lifestyle. We aren’t going out nearly as much. We are staying home, not wanting to venture too close to others out there who might be, you know, infected with the disease. We’re wiping down surfaces with antiseptic wipes; things like fuel pumps, shopping carts, door handles.

This hunkering down business isn’t intended to create panic. It is intended, as I listen to Dr. Fauci, as a method of deploying what we hear as an “abundance of caution.” I am OK with that.

I also am hearing some words of hope from Fauci, who told us this morning that the new cases in China and South Korea, where this outbreak reportedly started, appear to be declining. He won’t offer that as a final word of good cheer, preferring instead to caution that there might be another spike in new cases if the Chinese and South Koreans relax their own restrictions.

Having said all that, the cases in the United States are still increasing. Forty-nine of our 50 states have reported positive tests for coronavirus; only West Virginia remains untouched — so far!

Anthony Fauci said he’s working 19 hours each day. He has no time for anything else. He said he’s trying to persuade “the boss,” meaning Donald Trump, to stop shaking hands. He wants the president to use that elbow bump to greet folks. Get with the program, Mr. President. Listen to the doctor!

As for Dr. Fauci’s ubiquitous presence, as long we’re looking for answers to this pandemic, I can’t get enough of this brilliant man.

medical news, national news

Trump tests ‘negative’ on virus?

I might be struck by lightning for expressing this teensy-tiny bit of skepticism. If it happens, it was nice knowing y’all.

The White House has announced that Donald Trump has tested “negative” for the coronavirus. He had resisted submitting to the examination, then relented.

OK. I want to believe the president has tested negative, that the potentially deadly virus isn’t coursing through his body. I do not want the president stricken by this disease. Really. It’s true. I do not wish ill on this individual.

However, a significant portion of me continues to acknowledge a smidgen of doubt over what the White House has told us. Why? Well, it’s the president. That’s why!

He lies. About small things and big things. He cannot tell the truth. POTUS is about as untrustworthy as any public official I’ve ever witnessed. Trump is believed widely to detest being seen as weak or vulnerable. Such vulnerability belongs to others.

As the Associated Press reported: “One week after having dinner with the Brazilian delegation in Mar-a-Lago, the President remains symptom-free,” Sean Conley, the president’s physician, said in a memo.

I want the president to be well. I want my government to be fully functional. I want to believe statements that come from this White House.

If only I could … believe it unconditionally. 

medical news

A new term arises from coronavirus crisis

As if we didn’t have enough terminology that still needs to be logged into dictionaries and various glossaries for the English language.

Social distancing is the newest term of art. Who comes up with these additions to our contemporary lexicon.

The coronavirus pandemic has made us all just a bit more conscious of mingling too tightly in crowds. We now have to maintain adequate “social distancing” from others around us.

I have noted already whether it’s a verb or a noun. I have concluded, at least for the time being, that “social distancing” is a noun. I haven’t heard anyone yet refer to someone keeping a proper “social distance,” which I suppose would be more surely a noun version of the term.

How would one use the term as a verb? Hmm. “Be sure you ‘distance socially’ from other people.” How’s that? Does it work for you?

All of this I suppose is my way of suggesting my reluctance to use the term in an every-day sort of manner. It’s one of those new, suddenly cool terms that arises from time to time. I’ll leave it to the medical experts to warn us about the potential hazard associated with getting too close to strangers.

We need to maintain proper “social distancing.”

medical news, science news

Trump’s crisis bumbling might have done politically mortal damage

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Donald Trump has proved to be one of the nation’s most remarkable political survivors. Concerns over his boorishness, bullying, bravado all have washed away as his base of supporters continue to hang with him.

Now comes this, the pandemic that has swept around Earth and has killed dozens of Americans while infecting thousands more.

Trump’s response has been, well, let’s just say it’s been as un-presidential as one can imagine. The difference this time as compared to earlier un-presidential responses is that lives are at stake.

Is this the turning point, the tipping point that Trump so far — until right now — has managed to avoid?

I am not going to make any predictions. I mean, this individual has proven me wrong countless times ever since he declared his presidential candidacy in 2015; my goodness, it seems like a dozen lifetimes ago!

The current president of the United States has acted time and again since the coronavirus became a household term as if his main concern centers on his re-election. At what cost? His downplaying of the pandemic’s severity while at the same time medical and scientific experts say precisely the opposite tell us all a tale of presidential incompetence.

That is precisely the kind of ineptitude that many of us saw coming. Thus, it does not surprise many of us that Donald Trump has continued to fail this fundamental test of leadership.

The Liar in Chief worries that a cruise ship docking in California will drive up the numbers of infected Americans. He likes the numbers of stricken Americans “where they are.” He continues to boast about the economy while trillions of dollars in Americans’ retirement investments are being flushed away.

Donald Trump is masquerading as president.

I take no pleasure in any of this, given the impact this crisis is having on my life and that lives of my loved ones. However, we well might be witnessing the dousing of a political career that had no business igniting in the first place.

medical news, national news

Passing the buck, eh, Mr. POTUS?

Donald John “Buck Passer in Chief” Trump took a question this afternoon from a reporter who asked if the president took “responsibility” for the lack of testing kits available to help detect the coronavirus among Americans.

Trump called the reporter’s inquiry a “nasty question,” but then added that he takes “no responsibility at all,” even though the Trump administration dismantled the safeguards it inherited to deal with crises such as what we’re experiencing at the moment.

Trump said he didn’t know about the dismantling of the team that had been formed. He looked around at the folks standing with him in the White House Rose Garden for someone who could answer the question directly.

Wherever he is, President Harry Truman is seething. It was President Truman who famously displayed the sign on his White House desk that declared that “The Buck Stops Here.”

That is no longer the case. Donald Trump doesn’t accept any responsibility for any decision that reflects badly on him, the administration or the presidency itself.

Interesting, yes?

Consider, finally, something that I have noted already on High Plains Blogger: Donald Trump stood before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in the summer of 2016 and pronounced to the entire world that “I, alone” can repair what he said ails the nation.

That was a lie, too.

medical news

Get tested, Mr. President!

Readers of this blog, Mr. President — and I wish you were one of them — are likely to be surprised to learn that I do not wish ill health on you while you are in office.

Therefore, I believe it is incumbent on you to take the test to determine whether your body is infected with the coronavirus that is infecting so many others around the world.

You have shaken hands with attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference who have tested positive for the virus; you have rubbed shoulders with foreign dignitaries. You are about to declare a national emergency as we all seek to cope with this pandemic. Have you failed to hear the warning issued by Dr. Anthony Fauci? He said you need to take the test. Listen to the man. He’s the world’s pre-eminent expert on this stuff!

So, there you have it. You need to test yourself and you need to determine whether you and your family should isolate yourself from others with whom you are doing the work on our behalf.

May I remind you, Mr. President, that you are part of an “at-risk” group of Americans. You are a good bit north of 70 years of age (and, hey, I am not that far behind you). Those around you tell us that you don’t get enough sleep and that you’re too busy working on the nation’s problems. It makes me say, “Hello? Sleep is essential to good presidential health … especially now that this deadly virus is striking us all across the land.”

Get the damn test, Mr. President! I am sure your position would allow your doctor to expedite delivery of the test kit, unlike what many millions of other Americans are facing if they want to be tested. But, what the heck. That’s another story for another time.

I want to know if the president of the United States is in danger of getting quite sick.

medical news

Waiting for the current president to lead

I am having difficulty watching and listening to the president discuss the medical pandemic that is sweeping around the world.

He portrays an image of toughness when it’s easy to do so. When the time presents itself for Donald Trump to actually perform as a leader, he chokes. As The New York Times reported today:

While he presents himself as the nation’s commanding figure, Mr. Trump has essentially become a bystander as school superintendents, sports commissioners, college presidents, governors and business owners across the country take it upon themselves to shut down much of American life without clear guidance from the president.

He has contradicted medical experts’ analysis of the coronavirus crisis. The president spoke to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday about a travel ban he was imposing on Europe, only to have the White House “clarify” Trump’s remarks two or three minutes after he signed off. Trump acts more like a man desperate to ignite a Wall Street rally if only to help his re-election chances.

Donald Trump cannot get it right. He cannot lend an air of competence at a time when the nation desperately needs it from the center of executive power.

I have to arc back to a point I have sought to make on this blog since Donald Trump began seeking the presidency in the summer of 2015. It is simply that this man’s background has taught him nothing about the complexities of the federal government and the nuance of public service leadership.

It is absent as this individual flails and flutters while wishing for a medical “miracle” that will not occur.

medical news

We’re entering a phase of one issue eclipsing all others

It’s just me, perhaps, but I’ll offer this perspective anyway: It seems that we have entered a phase in which one issue renders all others petty and picayune.

The world is becoming swallowed up by the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly all of our 50 states now report cases. The president is trying to get his footing, but so far is failing to tell us the whole truth about what to expect.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is running for re-election. He is canceling rallies. So are the two major Democratic candidates still running for president.

There’s plenty of important matters going on right now. I consider the presidential campaign to be a big deal. Except that in the current environment and in the context of the health crisis that is growing all over the planet, the campaign seems decidedly less important than it otherwise would seem to be.

Our focus is riveted on where it needs to be. We need to deal with this coronavirus matter. I need to ensure continued good health in our household and in the households of those we love dearly.

So I am going to focus more on that and less on the politics of the moment. I won’t ignore that other stuff. It’s going to have to be pretty big, though, to get my attention.

Stay tuned … and stay well.