Tag Archives: Covid 19

medical news

Tragic milestone: 100K dead from virus

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Now that we have passed yet another grievous milestone in the fight against COVID-19, it’s time to look briefly — no need to rehash what we know — at how we got to this terrible event.

Donald Trump declared the virus “under control” in the beginning. We had 15 cases nationally. Trump said the disease would disappear like magic.

It hasn’t. The death toll stands at 100,000 — and counting!

He told us that as president, he calls the shots. Governors should yield to his authority as head of state and commander in chief. Then he punted. He tossed it all back to the governors.

Trump has fought with Democratic governors who have insisted that health concerns should be paramount in their executive decision-making. Trump has heaped praise on Republican governors who have insisted with equal fervor that the economic collapse has brought even more misery to Americans; Trump is in their corner.

Trump has enacted no national plan. He has produced no national strategy. Trump has contradicted medical experts he assembled to participate in the coronavirus pandemic response team.

Oh, and the virus that Trump said would disappear miraculously?

It hasn’t done any such thing. It has gotten worse. It is continuing to worsen. It is killing more Americans every hour.

And still … Donald Trump boasts about what a “fantastic job” he is doing. No. He is not!

national news

Trump might demand a GOP convention change of venue?

Donald John “Bully in Chief” Trump keeps looking for ways, it seems to me, to prove how incompetent, shallow and self-serving he can be.

Consider what he is threatening to do: He is now threatening to force a change of venue for the Republican National Convention from Charlotte, N.C. to move to another location at the last minute. His reason is a stunner.

He says North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper — who happens to be a Democrat — needs to declare its OK for GOP conventioneers to gather in the convention arena to cheer Donald Trump’s nomination for president.

Except that Gov. Cooper isn’t ready to make that declaration. He isn’t ready to say that the convention hall will be safe to stuff thousands of people under one roof while the nation fights the coronavirus pandemic.

I will stand with the governor on this one. No surprise there, right?

Still, Gov. Cooper is seeking to protect North Carolinians and those who are venturing to his state to take part in a presidential nominating convention.

What is troubling to me is that Trump would seek to coerce a governor who — along with his colleagues of both political parties — is trying to wrestle this killer virus into submission. Trump’s overarching concern is producing images of cheering convention attendees which, of course, he could use to boost his re-election chances.

Why not conduct a “virtual” convention, which is under serious consideration by the Democratic National Committee? The DNC is hoping to stage its convention in Milwaukee, Wisc., prior to the RNC’s event. However, as has become the norm in this fight against COVID-19, Democrats appear to err more on the side of health concern than their Republican colleagues … although I am certain GOP operatives are concerned about people’s health.

They’re just equally concerned about how to ensure Donald Trump’s re-election.

And the president is seeking to throw his weight around on an issue that well could put more Americans at risk.

Unbelievable!

national news

Put partisan politics aside to fight the pandemic … please!

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We are living in perilous times in light of the pandemic that is sweeping around the globe and has killed nearly 100,000 Americans.

OK, that is no flash on the part of this blog and your friendly blogger. Still, the idea needs a bit of fleshing out.

One would have thought — or could have thought — that a pandemic on the scale of the COVID -19 crisis could unite a nation that is divided sharply along partisan lines.

Democrats and Republicans dislike and even detest each other. We need a reason to unite. I would have thought that a pandemic that kills Republicans and Democrats with equal malice would do the trick. It isn’t happening.

Who’s to blame for the continuing partisan pi**ing match? I’ll declare my view: The blame belongs to Donald John “Demagogue in Chief” Trump.

The president takes an oath that compels him to unify the nation when crisis strikes. Past presidents have risen to the task: Franklin Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor was bombed; George W. Bush after 9/11. Donald Trump and the coronavirus pandemic? He has picked fights with Democratic governors, Democratic members of Congress, the media … you name ’em, he’s fought ’em.

Trump bristles at the idea that voting by mail is an alternative to traditional balloting. Why? He dismisses the fear that traditional voting would expose Americans to the virus and concocts a phony fear of “rampant voter fraud” if we allow all-mail voting. He threatens to withhold federal aid to Democrat-governed states if they proceed with mail-in voting.

We shouldn’t be fighting partisan battles when we’re supposed to focus on the viral infection that kills Americans with no regard to whether they are Democrat or Republican.

It appears to me that we are locked in a hopeless divide that is growing perhaps too wide for a worldwide health crisis to bridge. If only Donald Trump could learn to abide by the oath he took when he became president of the United States.

What an utter shame.

national news

Decisions made in ‘living rooms’

Leave it to David Brooks, one of the smarter pundits around, to put a lot of matters into perspective as we battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Brooks, who writes a column for The New York Times and is a “conservative” half of the commentary tandem with Mark Shields on PBS’s “NewsHour,” said the decisions being made in state capitols and in Washington don’t matter all that much.

These decisions about whether to join the “reopening” of the economy nationally, he said, are being made “in living rooms” across the nation.

Boy howdy, Dave.

That’s the case in our home out there in the middle of Trump Country. My wife and I essentially are blowing off the “advice” coming from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who continues to relax the restrictions he imposed in March as the pandemic began killing people around the world.

We aren’t eating in restaurants; we aren’t yet returning to the gym; we are leery about returning to church; we’re continuing to wear masks; we continue to wash surfaces we touch when we venture beyond our home; we certainly are keeping an appropriate “social distancing” level.

Do we like living this way? Of course not! We do, though, like the good health we enjoy and we intend to keep enjoying it for as long as is humanly possible.

Yes, we made these decisions in our living room.

national news

Trump plays with fire

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OK, I guess I can surmise that Donald John Trump is actually taking the questionable drug with the hope of preventing illness from COVID-19.

I had presumed he might be lying about it, but I guess the White House medical staff has confirmed what Trump said at that meeting Monday.

Still, I also believe strongly that Donald Trump should not be taking a drug, hydroxychloroquine, that scientists cannot confirm actually works as a preventative against killer viral infection.

Trump is 73 years of age. He packs at least 240 pounds on a body that isn’t equipped to carry that much weight. We keep hearing that his blood pressure and other vital signs are normal. However, this individual remains in an at-risk group of Americans, meaning he is older and is “morbidly obese.”

So he’s taking this drug. He tells us he gets a lot of “positive calls” from individuals who tell him hydroxychloroquine works well. Who in the name of scientific research is telling him that stuff? We out here in Flyover Country hear something different from what Trump keeps telling us he is hearing.

Scientists tell us — you and me — that hydroxychloroquine can produce heart issues that can kill someone who’s taking the drug.

Presidents assume many unwritten or unspecified duties when they take the oath to “protect and defend the Constitution.” They are consolers, comforters and role models.

Role models need to lead by example. Trump knows what the scientists are saying about hydroxychloroquine, that it poses dangers to those who consume it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing masks while we maintain a “social distance” from others.

Trump has tossed the role model part of his job into the crapper. He refuses to wear a mask in public, thinking it makes him look “ridiculous.” Now he’s consuming hydroxychloroquine, a drug that could produce extremely dire side effects 
 even for the president of the United States.

Once again, as if we need reminding, Donald Trump is failing yet another fundamental test of leadership.

State news

Time to re-impose restrictions in Texas?

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What the hell?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a reopening strategy for Texas business in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. What, then, is one of the results? A spike in COVID-19 infection throughout the state!

Texas beaches have reopened. Texas business has restarted, with limited capacity mandated by the governor. People are getting haircuts and getting their manicures, pedicures and other cosmetic enhancements.

Texans also are getting more exposed to the viral infection at an alarmingly increasing rate.

A lot of us have expressed concern about this decision to reopen the state. I had some hope that Abbott would make good on his pledge to rely on “data and the doctors” to make decisions relating to this reopening matter. Maybe he has, but the data and the docs might have misjudged the result.

As ABC News reports, the Texas infection spike hasn’t resulted in a total that rivals what has happened in New York, but clearly the infection rate has not yet “flattened out.”

This makes me ask: Should the governor re-impose the restrictions he put out when the pandemic took root in Texas and around the world?

Whatever he decides, know this: Yours truly isn’t changing a thing. We are going to keep sheltering in place.

You also may take this to the bank 
 if you dare venture out: This trend makes a mockery of Donald Trump’s assertion that we’ve turned the corner on the pandemic.

The disease is still winning this war against humanity.

medical news

Are we moving too quickly to reopen?

Social distancing is the weapon of necessity in this fight we are waging against the coronavirus pandemic.

Get a load of this bit of news out of Amarillo: Hundreds of meatpacking plant employees aren’t showing any symptoms of the COVID-19 virus — but are testing positive anyway for the viral infection.

Which makes social distancing and the wearing of masks so very imperative, according to Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson.

“We are encountering people who are asymptomatic,” said Mayor Nelson in remarks to KAMR/KCIT-TV in Amarillo. “They don’t know they’re sick, but they have the virus and they’re at the grocery store, you’re encountering them, and that’s why it’s so important to wear a mask. You could be that person.”

And yet we keep hearing from fools such as, oh, the president of the United States who tell us how vital it is to reopen the country, to get the economy jump started. Donald Trump cares less about the health of Americans than he does about the state of the economy and whether its current crisis bodes ill for his re-election chances.

Moreover, he is enlisting many of his gubernatorial allies — such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — in pushing forward possibly too quickly.

The Tyson Foods plant in Amarillo is a huge employer. More than 3,500 employees got tested for the virus, many of whom tested positive. I am forced to ask: Is it worth exposing those employees to serious illness or even death? I would say with emphasis: Hell no!

national news

Trump’s empathy is MIA

I keep looking — foolishly, I’ll acknowledge — for some signal that Donald Trump actually feels the pain of those who are stricken by the COVID-19 virus.

I cannot find it. It’s nowhere. It’s missing in action.

The other morning I turned on “Good Morning America” and watched Trump being interviewed by ABC News anchor David Muir. Trump got the question from Muir: What do you want to say to the millions of Americans who are suffering from the pandemic?

Trump said, “I love you.” He said “no one feels worse” than he does about the suffering. Trump said he has lost sleep over it.

Then he pivoted rapidly to reopening the country. He wants to get the country’s economy restarted. He said, “By the same token,” he wants business to get cranked up, boasting to Muir about how the nation was enjoying the greatest economy in human history when the pandemic struck.

Thus, Trump cannot speak with any semblance of sincere empathy to the suffering that his own administration exacerbated by its initial non-response to the growing pandemic.

Instead, he speaks of jobs lost. Don’t misunderstand me: That is a huge deal, too. Then again, he appears incapable of speaking with compassion and empathy to those who have lost their income, who are struggling to pay the mortgage, the rent, the auto loan, student loan, to buy food and medicine. The Carnival Barker in Chief speaks only to the national economy, couching it in terms that play to his re-election chances.

I am acutely aware that no demonstration of empathy would fix matters; it won’t produce a cure for what ails us. All I want from any president in a time of crisis is an example that he cares about all of us, that he understands the misery that has been unleashed. If you’ll pardon the clichĂ©, that he “feels our pain.”

This clown feels nothing. He needs to leave the White House.

national news

COVID death toll = Vietnam War death toll

Elements of this image furnished by NASA

I have been trying to connect two sets of numbers and I must admit to finding difficulty in determining the relevance of one to the other.

It was 45 years ago today when the Vietnam War ended. The helicopters lifted off the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, carrying refugees and remaining U.S. Marines and embassy staff. The war was over. North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon and the communists renamed the city after the late Ho Chi Minh.

More than 58,000 American servicemen and women and died in that war over the span of about 12 years. We now have lost more than 62,000 Americans to the COVID-19 virus and many observers have sought to link the two casualty counts.

What I reckon is most troubling is that Donald Trump — who aggressively sought to avoid taking part in the Vietnam War — now calls himself a “wartime president” leading a nation in the fight against what he describes as an “invisible enemy.”

Is that the relevant link? Hmm. Maybe.

I just have to conclude that Trump has failed to act like a wartime president. He has failed to provide anything that remotely falls into the category of national leader. He continues to provide happy talk about the “fantastic” work he says he and his team are doing; he trots out his know-nothing son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to proclaim laughably that the federal response is a “great success story.”

Perhaps that also provides some relevance between the Vietnam War and the current “war” against the coronavirus. Generals and politicians in the 1960s sought to persuade Americans that we were “winning” the Vietnam War. Presidents Johnson and Nixon lied to Americans; they instructed their military commanders to lie as well. If we move to the present day, we hear another president lie to us daily about the “success” we are experiencing.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump does not take more than 10 seconds per public pronouncement to speak at all about the human suffering that is unfolding in real time. He is failing to demonstrate any form of compassion or empathy, an unwritten but clearly understood part of the presidential job description.

The relevance between these two historical events — Vietnam and the current pandemic — can be found, I suppose, in the deceptions we were fed then and are being fed now.

medical news

VP Pence: As grotesque a liar as POTUS

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REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

That did it.

Vice President Mike Pence has demonstrated what I have long suspected, that he is as much a liar as Donald John Trump.

The VP showed up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., walked into the renowned research hospital, saw that everyone around were wearing surgical masks to protect them from COVID-19 
 but then greeted patients and staff without covering his own puss with a mask.

Now we hear from Karen Pence, the suck-up’s wife, that he didn’t know about Mayo’s mask-wearing policy until after he departed.

Good grief! Who do these people think they’re kidding?

Mike Pence’s own excuse for eschewing the mask was as lame as it gets. He said he is tested regularly for COVID-19, that he’s still infection free, so he felt safe going without a mask. Two points I want to make: Millions of Americans have gone without any form of testing at all, yet the VPOTUS says he is tested routinely; I guess power has its privileges. Also, he walked into a medical facility that declared it notified Pence directly about its policy requiring masks, which tells me he instructed his wife to lie, dragging her into the middle of this credibility chasm that afflicts the Donald Trump administration.

Mike Pence is as morally lacking in leadership credibility as the individual with whom he pretends to serve the nation that elected them. Disgraceful.