By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued a timely and seemingly authentic plea to the 45th president of the United States.

Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief medical adviser, has asked Donald J. Trump — who he describes as enormously popular among those who continue to follow him — to encourage his millions of supporters to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

This is just my view, but my hunch is that Trump isn’t likely to listen to too much that Fauci says about anything. I mean, he did call Fauci an “idiot” after the renowned infectious disease expert challenged an assertion that Trump had made.

Fauci is trying to de-politicize the vaccine debate. The Trumpsters keep resisting the vaccine. Other Americans are lining up to receive them. The infection rate is falling, as is the positivity test rate — and the death rate.

Indeed, we now know that Donald and Melania Trump received their vaccines in private just a few days before leaving the White House. The POTUS and the FLOTUS didn’t want to let it be known that they had gone against Donald Trump’s own stated resistance to the severity of the pandemic.

The beans have been spilled and Dr. Fauci is seeking ways to get to the millions of Americans who hang onto the goofy notion that the vaccine is going to harm them. Fauci and the many other scientists say they only will help us.

Any of them would be acceptable, Fauci said: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

I applaud Dr. Fauci for seeking to talk sense to those who at times seem to lack any sort of rational thought. If they hear from their hero/idol/cult leader that the vaccines are safe and effective, then perhaps we can accelerate the return to what we used to think of as “normal living.”