Monthly Archives: March 2020

medical news, national news

Dr. Fauci: Go ahead and criticize us for doing ‘too much’

Dr. Anthony Fauci was a marathon man today, appearing on all five major news-talk shows while explaining what the federal government is doing to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

There he was: on “Meet the Press,” on “This Week,” on “Fox News Sunday,” on “Face the Nation,” and on “State of the Union.”

I caught his recitation on the first two mentioned in this brief post.

Fauci said a lot. One thing stands out. He wants the government to do all it can, even if it means it’s doing “too much.”

That’s all right, Dr. Fauci said. He said it’s OK to criticize him for doing too much. He would rather take that heat than be criticized for not doing enough to battle the potentially deadly disease.

The nation’s pre-eminent epidemiologist is sounding the bell to which the nation must answer. He urges us to “hunker down,” he warns that a vaccine is not around the corner, as some in the administration have suggested, Fauci wants us to wash our hands, keep our hands away from our face. He said today that he would support a national quarantine for as long as it takes.

If that’s too much and Americans want to criticize him, then Dr. Fauci said, in so many words: Bring it on!

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.

national news

This is what happens when we ‘elect a sociopath as president’

The first few minutes of this video speaks volumes to me — and it should to you — about how badly Donald Trump has blown apart the government response to the pandemic that has erupted around the world.

David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, said it eloquently on the “PBS NewsHour.” This is what we get when we “elect a sociopath as president” of the United States.

Brooks expresses “rage” at what he saw this week from the president and the administration he was elected to lead.

Then there’s Mark Shields, the syndicated columnist and the progressive half of this erudite tandem, who talks about Trump’s desire to leave a cruise ship adrift off the California coast rather than let it dock in Oakland. Why? Because it would it increase “my numbers” relating to those infected by the coronavirus. Trump, said Shields, is concerned only about how it affects him, and he said that Trump not only “lacks empathy,” he has an “empathy void.”

Take a look at this video. It’s only about 11 minutes long, but it lays bare the fundamental failure of the current president of the United States and his inability to muster anything resembling presidential leadership in a time of national crisis.

national news

Vote by mail in case of emergency? Hmm, let’s think about this

They’ve been voting for president by mail in the state of my birth, Oregon, since 2000.

Now the state’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, has come up with an idea to nationalize this practice in case of a medical emergency that prohibits Americans from traipsing to their polling places on Election Day.

Man, oh man. This gives me fits. Here’s why.

I like what I consider to be the “pageantry” of voting on Election Day, of going to the polling place and casting my ballot. I like handing my ballot to an election judge or placing it into a bin where it’s counted once the polling place closes.

Oregon and a few other states do it differently. They send ballots to voters in the mail. Voters then fill out their ballots and send ’em in also by mail. They’re collected and then tabulated.

Sen. Wyden’s idea might be worth doing … but only if the current pandemic escalates into something far more dangerous than it is at this moment.

As The Oregonian reports: “No voter should have to choose between exercising their constitutional right and putting their health at risk,” Wyden told The Washington Post. “When disaster strikes, the safest route for seniors, individuals with compromised immune systems or other at-risk populations is to provide every voter with a paper ballot they can return by mail or drop-off site.”

Wyden is asking the federal government for $500 million to help states get ready for a vote-by-mail program if national health officials determine it’s too dangerous medically for voters to cast their ballots the old-fashioned way.

If that’s what happens, then I’m all for it. I will not surrender my right as an American patriot to do my civic duty, to perform my role as a citizen.

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. 

media news

Media earn a shout out on pandemic coverage

I imagine you’ve heard the gripes, mostly from conservatives, who bitch about the media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

They complain that the media are covering this matter so intensely for the so political harm to Donald John Trump

Their complaints are without basis. They are dubious in the extreme.

The media have done a spectacular job covering this crisis. And it is a crisis, no matter how many times some of our political leaders — such as The Donald — might seek to understate its impact on the world.

The media coverage arc has tracked like many of these events often do: They report on an incident, give it the attention it deserves; they follow its progression, then report on increases of incidents; then the story explodes when governments start reacting to the increasing instances of illness … and death.

The World Health Organization has weighed in with a declaration that the coronavirus outbreak has reached pandemic status, which quite obviously is a major development. The media have covered the WHO involvement carefully and thoroughly.

What’s more, the media have explored the nuts and bolts, the ins and outs, the zigs and zags of this issue from damn near every angle imaginable. There are quite likely to be even more angles to cover.

As for the political impact, well, let me just declare that the media only have reported the stumbles, bumbles, bungles that have come from the U.S. government’s highest levels. There can be no way for the media to paper it over. Has it harmed Donald Trump? Yes, more than likely. Is it the media’s fault? Hell no! The media are simply the messengers delivering the news.

So it has gone. The media are charged with the responsibility of chronicling what government does for us … and to us. The Constitution protects the rights of a “free press” and the media seek to be true to the document that informs government that it cannot interfere with or manipulate them.

The media will continue to do their job as the pandemic likely worsens. They will report to the world what they see without regard to the political consequences, which are of no concern to journalists who simply are doing their job.

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.