Tag Archives: vaccine

medical news

Fox News dude joins vaccine crowd

You go, Neil Cavuto.

The Fox News correspondent has come down with the COVID-19 virus. He is feeling OK, but he has joined a growing list of news and opinion pundits in calling for the rest of us to get vaccinated.

He put out a message that in effect said, “forget about all that crap you’re hearing on the political side of this matter. Get your vaccine.”

Yes, Neil. You are so right You have a wide audience of viewers who otherwise might not be inclined to get vaccinated. They are listening to those on the right and the far right about so-called side effects created by the vaccine, whether it’s from Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson&Johnson.

Spoiler alert: My wife and I have taken both Pfizer vaccines and the booster … and neither of us grown a third eye. Honest, man! We’re good!

So it is with gladness that I welcome an influential journalist to the ranks of vaccine supporters.

Get well, Neil.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

This is ‘pro-business’?

How in the name of sound policy does a “conservative” Republican governor who touts his state’s “business-friendly” climate issue an executive order that demands private businesses refrain from issuing mandates that could save the lives of employees and customers?

That is what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has done in his ongoing fight to defy President Biden’s effort to get businesses and government agencies to do their part to rid the nation and the world of the COVID-19 virus.

So help me, I don’t get it. Then again, there are a lot of things about GOP governing strategy that go beyond my ability to understand. This is just one of them.

Abbott issued an executive order that prohibits private business owners from taking steps that could prevent the spread of a killer virus. Where I come from, I call that “government intrusion.” Oh sure, Abbott and his minions say that Biden and his supporters are intruding into private business affairs through their vaccine and mask mandates. I am going to side with the president on this one. Big surprise … huh?

Gov. Abbott’s order actually is inviting businesses to join him in defying a national effort aimed at protecting us against the virus. Let’s see, the virus has killed more than 700,000 Americans already. Right? So the president wants to incentivize Americans into getting vaccinated and to take measures to protect themselves — and others — against a deadly infection.

Gov. Greg Abbott has just tossed the state’s pro-business playbook into the crapper. Good luck trying to retrieve it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

‘Public health’: all-inclusive

Let’s visit the term “public health” for a moment.

The way I understand the term, it refers to the health and well-being of an entire community, a city, state, nation. That means everyone, as in the public!

Thus, when a government entity issues an order that seeks to protect the public’s health, I harbor no reticence about following that order. It means that those who represent us are trying to protect us. As in you and me.

I keep hearing this mantra about “personal choice” regarding whether we should be required to wear masks outside of our home. The woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner spoke to that issue this morning on “The View.” Jenner said it is her “choice” to wear a mask, or to maintain social distance, or to get a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus.

Umm. No. It isn’t just an individual’s choice. Not when the illness that the individual might contract affects others around them. Thus, the public’s health becomes paramount in this discussion.

President Biden is issuing orders left and right to businesses, to those who work for the federal government and others. He wants them to mask up. He requires them to get vaccinated against a virus that is still killing Americans daily.

I am going to stand with those who want to protect me against a virus that could kill me. Is it any sweat off my back to mask up? Hell no! It isn’t!

As for the vaccine. I intend to line up as soon as possible to get the booster the feds have approved.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Time for good COVID thoughts

It is time to send some good COVID thoughts around the world.

I keep hearing bits and pieces of good news regarding the killer virus.

Hospitalization rates are falling. Same for death rates. Vaccine distribution is ramping up. Federal drug regulators have approved Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

Are we turning the corner yet again on this virus?

I trust you remember a time about six months ago when a new president took office, declared war against the virus and then promised to be “independent” of the killer by the Fourth of July, aka Independence Day. You get the symmetry, right?

Well, it didn’t happen. Variants kept popping up. The delta variant has proven to be the most troublesome.

Now, though, we’re getting dribs and drabs of good news.

Again! Once more!

Is this the actual beginning of the end to the virus that has killed nearly 700,000 Americans?

Please let it be so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news, political news

Add a word to your shirt

BRENHAM, Texas — It didn’t surprise me in the least to see a dipsh** walking around the Washington Country Fairgrounds wearing a shirt that had a message that sought to stick in the eye of those of us who insist on getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

We traveled to the center of some folks’ political universe. I swear I saw more “Trump-Pence: Make America Great” lawn signs and banners than I have seen in a good while.

Back to the moron and his t-shirt.

The shirt in part read: Unafraid, Unapologetic, Unvaccinated. There was a fourth “un”-word, but I cannot remember it now.

My thought when I saw this clown was that he should have added another term. That would be “uncaring.” He doesn’t care about his loved ones who might become exposed to the virus he might be backing around at this very moment.

We stayed far away from this clown.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Get vaccinated … dammit!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to implore everyone within shouting distance of this blog to do something that some of you might have been resisting.

You need to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, and against the damn variants that are cropping up.

The Food and Drug Administration has declared that anyone who has been vaccinated fully can get a booster shot eight months after they have received their second vaccine dose. So … my wife and I checked our vaccine cards. We become eligible for the booster in late October; we both got our vaccinations in late February.

We are just two of the 161 million or so Americans who have been vaccinated fully against the virus. Our sons have been vaccinated, as has our daughter-in-law. Our siblings — my sisters and her brothers and their spouses have been vaccinated. Our granddaughter isn’t yet old enough to receive her vaccine; she’ll get one when the FDA gives the go-ahead. Her brothers have been vaccinated, too.

To be sure, we have some knuckleheads in our extended family who have refused to get vaccinated. Most of them are refusing for ridiculous political reasons. A couple of them reportedly have bought into the goofy notions espoused by the QAnon crowd, the stuff about serious body changes if you get a shot … that kind of crap.

I have been a longtime proponent of vaccines. When our sons were young, they got all the vaccines that helped ward off infectious disease. I have little tolerance or patience for those who refuse to get vaccinated. Religious reasons? Sure, I get that. Serious medical concerns and fear of adverse reaction? I understand.

The booster shot is going into this old man’s arm as soon as the calendar allows it. Oh, and I also am going to wear a mask when I am among people I don’t know.

President Biden said several months ago that getting vaccinated is the “patriotic thing to do.” We must do so to protect ourselves and those we love — and even total strangers — against a disease that still is killing too many of us.

medical news

Smart guys get ignored?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I enjoy these messages that pop up on my various social media platforms. This one showed up today and I just had to share a thought or two about what it tells us.

It tells me that contemporary society has chosen to dumb itself down and believe the know-nothings who say what we want to hear and ignore the experts who tell us what we need to hear.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 4 million human beings worldwide, more than 600,000 of us in the United States. It’s dangerous, dammit! And we don’t need brainiacs to tell us that. The brainy corps of medical experts, physicians and infectious disease researchers are on board with what we need to know about the killer virus. It is that it could kill us if we don’t take proper precautions.

Oh, and we also need to get vaccinated to ward it off!

However, the public discourse is being drowned out by the dipsh**s who continue to insist that the experts are wrong. The know-nothings to whom I refer generally populate the right-wing airwaves and fill up space on right-wing publications.

Some of the more notable blowhards — Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson — can barely find their backsides with both hands. Yet their pontification is being taken as gospel by those who share their world view.

All the while, we hear from learned medical scholars — such as CDC director Rachelle Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci — that the virus and its attendant variants pose an imminent danger to us. The reaction among too many of us? Nothing, man!

The 45th president of the United States brought a lot of experts on board when the pandemic first took hold. They provided him with sound advice. He chose to ignore most of the advice given to him by the likes of Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, CDC director Robert Redfield and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. He called some of them “idiots.” He spoke the language of the fellow know-nothings.

They continue to outshout the actual experts at this moment. That is to their shame and their disgrace. It’s also to the disgrace of those who choose to heed the morons who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

You may count me among the know-nothings. Which is why I choose to listen to the advice of the experts.

medical news

‘Choice’ has its limits

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The idiocy being bandied about among conservative “thinkers” and assorted right-wing talking heads about those who “make a choice to forgo the COVID vaccine” miss a fundamental truth about society.

Yes, they are able to make that choice. I do not deny that obvious fact. However, making such a choice — if that is their call — carries with it some serious consequences that go far beyond their own well being.

We are able to choose to drink adult beverages. We do not have the right to do so and then drive a motor vehicle while impaired. Doing so endangers others who share the same public roadways.

We also have the choice to play music loudly. We can play rock ‘n roll music until our eardrums bleed. However, we have laws that prohibit us from doing so in the wee hours of the morning; we cannot disturb other people’s sleep.

Indeed, we have laws all over the place that regulate our behavior. Why? Because at times some of us commits acts that others either find offensive, or bothersome, or put them in potential grave danger.

Do you get my drift here?

Yes, we can choose to do without the vaccine. What happens, though, when that choice endangers others? What happens when, after choosing to go without the medicine that would prevent us from getting the COVID virus, we get sick? Or when we infect others? Or when our children get sick? Or when they infect their friends?

Our choices can have serious consequences that affect far more than just you and me.

As we battle these COVID variants — some of which have become highly contagious and highly transmissible — we should be mindful about the “choices” we make.

As for me and what I want for my family, we all have chosen to get vaccinated and, no, I have no problem at all with government telling us to get vaccinated if it keeps us safe from a potentially deadly infection.

national news

If only he would do this

1 Comment

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If the 45th president of the U.S. of A. had an ounce, a smidgen, a sliver, the tiniest grain of decency buried somewhere within his overfed body, he would call a press conference.

Then he would say the following before taking a few questions from the media:

My fellow Americans, I am here today to urge every resident of this great land to get vaccinated against the COVID pandemic virus.

As you know, my family and I all have received our vaccines. Yes, my wife and I did so secretly in our final months in the White House. My point, though, is that we did it. I urge you all to follow our lead.

Do not listen to those who question the effectiveness of the vaccine. Do not heed the warnings of crazy things happening to your body. I am going to be a human testament to the vaccines’ effectiveness and their safety.

The surge in the Delta variant is rooted solely in the unvaccinated among us. We must stop this spread. Vaccines are the only way to do it.

***

The 45th POTUS won’t ever say such a thing in public. Why not? Because doing so would require him to reveal that he actually cares about you and me, about the country he once swore an oath to defend and protect and about those who have been stricken by the virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans.

He won’t do it because he cares only about himself.

Lightning might strike. Were it to do so, we could save many thousands of lives.

medical news

Vaccines alone can kill the virus

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If it weren’t so damn hot outside at the moment, I might be inclined to climb a ladder onto the roof of my North Texas house and shout at the top of my lungs: Get your sorry ass vaccinated!

The temperature is 100 degrees. I am too old to be climbing up on roofs. So I am left to use this forum — my blog — to repeat a mantra I will continue to repeat until we see a reduction in the infection/hospitalization/death rate from the COVID-19 virus.

Or the variant it has spawned.

The misinformation war is still being waged. The antagonists are the right-wing propagandists who insist the vaccine does harm to our bodies and the the medical experts who counter that the vaccines — all of them — are safe and effective.

President Biden wanted to turn the corner on the vaccine by the Fourth of July. The nation fell short of the total vaccination goal the president had set. It is not his fault, I must reiterate, that we have failed to meet the goal. It’s the fault of the legions of liars who continue to sow doubt about the vaccines. They have blood on their hands in the form of the lives that are still being lost to the pandemic.

The delta variant continues to fell Americans. The vast, overwhelming majority of those who are falling victim to it have not been vaccinated. It is on them, therefore, to take responsibility for the illness they are suffering. And for the misery they are creating among their family members. Oh, and for the threat they pose to others who also lack the full vaccine.

I just don’t know what it is going to take to persuade enough Americans of the fatal folly they are pursuing by refusing the give up the partisan politicking in the midst of this war against a killer virus.

Meanwhile, I will continue to insist from my fully vaccinated house in Collin County, Texas, that only the vaccine can eradicate the virus.

Are we crystal clear? Good. Now, get the shot(s) you need to eradicate this killer.