Politics of the pandemic?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Whoever thought in a million years that an international medical emergency could devolve into a partisan dispute among leaders of the world’s most indispensable nation?

If you could foresee such a thing happening, then you are the smartest human being to ever walk this good Earth.

A pandemic erupted in late 2019. It spread around the world through that winter and into the spring of 2020. The U.S. president at the time downplayed the threat to human beings. Some of us believed his public dismissal. Others of us didn’t.

It has gotten only worse since that time.

We now argue over whether we should wear surgical masks to prevent being infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus. Politicians tell local authorities they cannot do things above what they declare to protect their constituents. Learned medical doctors and scientists are called “idiots” and “losers” by a former president.

We end up arguing along partisan lines over whether masks do the job. Republicans say “no.” Democrats say “yes.”

Oh, meanwhile, the disease keeps sickening and killing us. The U.S. death count is 600,000-plus. Are we worried? If not, we damn well should be.

The politics of the pandemic is beyond annoying. It is disgraceful that we would tolerate any short-shrift given to this disease by those — namely on the right and the far right — who dismiss it all as some sort of conspiracy.

We also have the vaccines.

Read my lips: The vaccines work! They are effective. They also are safe. Yet we hear from the goofballs on the far right — namely the QAnon cabal — about human beings turning into chimps because they get the vaccine.

What the … ? The only individuals who buy into that nonsense are the chumps among us who swill the Kool-Aid being offered by certifiable nut jobs.

We need to pull together to rid the world of the pandemic. The scientists know of what they speak. The politicians among us — starting with the immediate past president of the U.S. of A. — are know-nothing clowns.

We have an international medical crisis on our hands. The politics can be set aside for a day when we defeat the pandemic.