By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There once was a time not too long ago when we thought we had made the turn down the stretch in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then came the variant called Delta. It’s changed. So now we’re being treated to a war of words between elected politicians and medical experts.

Who do you believe? The pols — some of whom want to run for president in 2024 or the physicians/scientists/researchers who have no obvious political ambition?

Hmm. I am going to stick with the docs. I will ignore the politicians.

We have clowns such as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida making an utter a** of himself by threatening to withhold salaries of school officials who order students and teachers to wear masks to fight the COVID pandemic.

Here in Texas, we have another GOP governor, Greg Abbott, who issued an order that bans schools, counties and cities from taking measures that go beyond what the governor has decreed. School officials in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin have defied the governor’s order. Why did they do that? Because the medical experts in their respective communities have told them that requiring masks will help stem the infection rates cause by that Delta variant.

Congress is sprinkled with fruitcakes and assorted nut jobs who keep suggesting that mask-wearing mandates deprive us of our “freedom” to live like Americans. Hey, listen up goofballs: I prefer to live, period. The alternative — illness and possible death — would rob me of much more “freedom” than any order that comes from the county courthouse, city hall or the school district administration.

The doctors have the knowledge, the information, the credentials and the credibility to withstand the criticism being leveled at them by political hacks.

I intend to stand with the medical experts.

They are the men and women with the skill and the knowledge to put the COVID-19 scourge down for the count.