Hire the best … and listen to them!

(Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What do you know about this?

It appears President-elect Joe Biden might be inheriting an actual positive result that has its roots during the Donald Trump administration. That would be the seemingly pending discovery of a vaccine for the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly a quarter million Americans.

Two big pharma outfits — Pfizer and Moderna — have declared initial success with vaccines they are running through clinical trials. They boast of success rates of more than 90 percent. Finally there might be some good news to report after months and months of misery.

What is the president-elect’s task now? It is to adhere to the advice given him by the medical team he is assembling to combat this killer virus. Biden doesn’t want a nationwide lockdown. However, he must not be swayed by the political consequence of such an event.

Dr. Scott Atlas currently serves as Trump’s go-to guy on the pandemic. Atlas, though, is not an infectious disease expert. Indeed, he hasn’t practiced medicine for a decade. He is a hack, a political donor who landed a job that should have gone to someone with actual experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.

Atlas also had the terrible judgment to say that Americans should “rise up” against government mandates designed to save their lives. What the hell? He said he wasn’t advocating violence … but it looks like he was doing precisely that to me.

Please, Mr. President-elect, avoid that kind of appointment. Whatever you do, make good on your pledge to “follow the science.” Biden must surround himself with experts and then he must actually heed what they tell him.

The signs are filled with promise the new administration is going to march down a different path than the one used by the government it will replace.

That, folks, is a very good thing.