Tag Archives: coronavirus

medical news

Why do GOP pols keep getting sick from COVID?

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, don’t hate me because I am going to ask this question, given that I recently called for an end to the politicization of the COVID pandemic.

I gotta ask: Why are Republican politicians and political operatives — not to mention members of Donald Trump’s family — keep getting infected by the virus? Why aren’t more, um, Democratic pols and key aides to President-elect Biden getting the disease?

Oh, I think I know. It’s because GOP pols and key aides keep dismissing the measures the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keep urging us to take to avoid getting sick; Democrats, meanwhile, are taking these measures seriously.

Could that be it? Oh, sure it is!

Is there a lesson to learn here? You bet there is.

medical news

Vaccine on the way … will it spell end to pandemic?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s difficult for me to avoid getting too ramped up over news that a vaccine that could eradicate the COVID-19 virus is on its way to a pharmacy near me.

Pfizer has announced a potential vaccine with a 95 percent cure rate; Moderna has a similar vaccine in the works; Astrazenica does, too. Big pharma, which gets whipped and flogged all the time, is answering the call.

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed. It’s fashionable these days to bash the daylights out of Donald Trump … who deserves every bit of the thrashing he is getting for a whole host of reasons.

Operation Warp Speed, the code name for the administration’s effort to find a cure for the disease, has been a mixed bag to be sure. The pharmaceutical companies haven’t gotten the federal help that was promised, but they appear to be delivering trial versions of vaccines that well could be the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.”

I am not yet ready to whoop and holler, proclaiming it to be the news for which an entire nation has waited, but it does look promising.

Given all the bad news we’re getting — Trump’s refusal to concede his loss to President-elect Biden and the undermining of our democratic process, not to mention the death and misery caused by the pandemic — I will cling to the hope that we might awaken soon from this national nightmare.

medical news

We’re still talking about COVID, Mr. POTUS

(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel the need to remind you, Mr. President, of something you said on Oct. 24, about two weeks before you got thumped in your re-election bid.

You said everyone talks about “COVID, COVID, COVID,” and that by Nov. 4, “no one will be talking about” the disease that continues to infect and kill Americans.

OK, Mr. President. It’s now Nov. 13 and we’re still talking about COVID. Why? Because your administration’s shameful inaction on combating the killer virus has resulted in yet another ghastly and deadly spike in infection and death.

Haven’t you read the papers, Mr. President? We’re breaking records every day! For God’s sake, dude, the infection you kept telling us is “under control” is anything but under control. It is stampeding through our population like a herd of bison.

Does it fail to register with you, Mr. President, that your staff has been infected? Or that members of your Secret Service detail have come down with the disease? Or that you, your wife and your youngest son all were infected by the disease?

We’re still talking about the disease, Mr. POTUS! We’re going to keep talking about the disease for far longer than any of us want to talk about it.

This ain’t a hoax, Mr. President. It’s real. It is deadly … and you, sir, are responsible for continuing misery.

national news

Docs are conspiring?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I just picked my jaw off the floor.

Why did it fall so far? I just heard Donald Trump say out loud to a campaign rally that the nation’s doctors and nurses are conspiring to fake death counts by the coronavirus because they, um, get more money.

He said also that if we hear about deaths from the coronavirus that we shouldn’t believe what we are hearing. It’s all fake, says the president of the United States of America.

I am baffled. Flummoxed. Enraged.

Donald Trump’s lying has plunged to new lows and that, my friends, is saying patently frightening.

He says if people catch the killer virus, they aren’t likely to die. They’ll just get better; they become immune from further infection; they get on with their lives.

Oh, but wait: More than 1,000 Americans died yesterday from the coronavirus. How could that happen? Donald Trump says docs and nurses are faking it. The media are reporting “fake news.”

This individual is as despicable as they come. He needs to lose this election … bigly.

medical news, national news, science news

Turning the COVID corner? Hah!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, Mr. President, let’s lay it on the table, shall we?

You keep saying we are “turning the corner” on the coronavirus pandemic. That is a lie. Which isn’t a surprise, given your penchant for lying.

Damn near every state in the Union is experiencing an increase in coronavirus infections. Yes, some of those states see a decline in deaths, which of course is good news.

But for criminy sakes, dude, stop lying about “turning the corner.” We aren’t turning anything resembling a corner in this fight.

Joe Biden has built his electoral lead on the back of your consistent denial over the seriousness of the killer disease. Holy cow, man! Didn’t your own infection, or the infections of your wife and son, Barron, teach you anything? Don’t answer that. I know it didn’t.

I’m glad you’re better. I am particularly glad to know that the first lady and young Barron are OK, too. Your cavalier attitude about the coronavirus, though, only proves your unfitness for the office you want to keep.

So, with that I guess I could ask you to keep up the charade.

Many millions of us know better than to buy into the nonsense you seek to peddle.

medical news, national news

‘We can’t control the virus’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Mark Meadows doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

He told CNN this weekend that “We can’t control” the pandemic that has killed 220,000 Americans and sickened millions more of us.

Really, Mr. White House Chief of Staff? We can’t control a virus that has been controlled quite effectively in nations all across the globe. Has he looked at what they have done in, say, Taiwan? Or Greece? Or Costa Rica? Those countries took the virus by the throat at the outset and have reported a fraction of the misery that has occurred in much of the rest of the world, including the United States.

Think of the idiocy that flew out of Meadows’s pie hole. We live in the nation with the world’s greatest researchers, the greatest medical technology, the most wherewithal to devote to fighting this disease. The White House chief of staff says we can’t control the virus?

What then does this say about the feel-good message that Donald J. Trump keeps offering. Doesn’t he say categorically that the pandemic is “under control”? Yep. He does. Oh, wait! The nation’s top politician doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either.

So here we are. We have an ignorant president saying we have a disease under control when we do not; we also have a White House chief of staff say we cannot gain control over a disease … when we damn well certainly could do so.

May we please banish this ignorance from the White House at the end of Election Day?

medical news

Trump speaks stupidly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Forrest Gump had it right when he said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

With that want to I delve into Donald J. Trump’s latest volley of stupid statements, this time involving one of the world’s premier epidemiologists, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

You see, we have the Liar in Chief calling Fauci’s work on the coronavirus pandemic a “disaster.” What’s more, he threw in an epithet hardly befitting anyone, let alone a president of the United States. He referred to Fauci as an “idiot.”

I am left with three thoughts.

One of them is how in the name of presidential statesmanship can Donald Trump refer to his handpicked science adviser on the pandemic as being a “disaster” to the White House pandemic response team. Trump selected this individual to serve on that team, tasking him with providing cold, hard scientific data. Trump promised to listen to the experts on the team. He lied about that, too!

The second thought is the use of the “idiot” term to refer to Fauci, an Ivy League-educated scientist and medical doctor who has served every president of both parties dating back to Ronald Wilson Reagan. He has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS research, has led efforts to fight previous epidemics.

Dr. Fauci is as brilliant a doctor/scientist on matters of infection disease as anyone on Earth.

Yet he now is being scorned and vilified by a politician who cannot find his backside with both hands when it comes to discussing intelligently the complicated matters of science and epidemiology.

Finally, how in the world does Dr. Fauci continue to work for this moron? Fauci would be able to provide unfettered scientific advice and counsel to the nation without having to answer to Donald J. Trump, whose abject stupidity continues to marvel me.

national news

Trump ‘cured’? Uh, huh

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald J. Trump says he is “cured” of the coronavirus that felled him and the first lady.

Do you believe him? Do you take anything that comes from Trump’s mouth at face value? Nope. Neither do I.

The doctors, though, do say he is no longer contagious, which I suppose Trump has interpreted as meaning he is “cured.”

Donald Trump has called his positive test for the virus that has killed more than 215,000 Americans as  “blessing.” Yet he continues to downplay it. He declares the disease will disappear. I have this flash for The Donald: More than 50,000 Americans are still getting sick daily from the virus, which is a trend that has spanned several days in a row. From my perch out here in Flyover Country, it doesn’t look like the disease is anywhere near disappearing.

This brings me to another key point. If Trump was “blessed” to have been stricken by the virus, one might hope he would have learned to keep his mouth shut and let the scientists, the medical doctors and the assortment of experts who comprise his White House COVID response team explain to us in detail what is going on with the disease.

I only can surmise that Trump’s blessing doesn’t extend to acquiring any wisdom about speaking out of turn and spewing lies that put Americans at risk.

He went so far as to declare himself “immune” from future positivity because he has caught the disease once. Not so fast, say the experts. COVID doesn’t respect previous afflictions, they tell us.

So now we’re back to where we were when Donald Trump tested positive for a serious disease. I am glad he appears to be on the mend. I only wish he would have learned something from it. He didn’t learn a damn thing.

national news

Trump endangers his followers

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Certainly long after this election has gone by — perhaps even forever and ever — I will remain baffled by how Donald Trump continues to hold onto his support when he puts his ardent followers at extreme risk of catching a virus that could have killed him.

Trump once again today called a rally at the White House. Supporters were arrayed in front of the balcony from which he spoke. Trump himself might still be contaminated with the COVID-19 virus that hospitalized him for a few days this week; at least he had sense enough to stay away from the fans.

There they were, though. Clustered together. Many of them wore masks. Some of them didn’t. They cheered the Old Man’s lies and invective just like they always do.

And there he was, in all his campaign-rally glory, exhorting the troops to march on as if nothing has happened to change everyone’s life for well past the foreseeable future.

Joe Biden continues to enjoy a comfortable poll lead. Do I believe the former vice president will win this election going away? Hah! No. I don’t! My hope remains strong that he will be able to win by a comfortable enough margin to dispel any doubt that Trump vows to concoct that the election is somehow “rigged.”

How in the world does Trump manage to hold tightly to that 40 to 42 percent bloc of voters, some of whom get to stand in front of him in crowds that defy medical experts’ recommendations — and admonitions?

It’s a mystery. Perhaps I should just let that mystery stand and cease trying to attach a semblance of reason to the irrational.

local news

Here we go again with business reopening

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelils_92@hotmail.com

All righty. Here is what is about to happen in the county where I live with members of my family.

Collin County Judge Chris Hill has declared that bars will reopen to 50 percent of capacity early next week. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has left the decision up to county officials. It’s that pandemic thing that keeps getting in the way.

So help me I don’t know how I feel about this.

I do not intend to frequent any bars/lounges in the near future. I keep hearing from pandemic experts that bars and restaurants are among the most “dangerous” places to be, that they provide more opportunities to get infected by this potentially fatal viral infection.

We’ve been down this road before. I recall that bars did reopen for a time; then they shut down again. The pandemic continues to sicken too many Texans daily, let alone killing too many of us.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins isn’t reopening bars just yet. Tarrant County officials remain undecided on what to do. Collin County is moving ahead, although with due caution.

I want a return to “normal” as we used to define the term as much as the next guy. I do not want to see us rush toward that return if it means we’re going to sicken and possibly kill more Texans.

My message to Judge Chris Hill is simple: Be as quick to shut these places down if there’s any hint of a spike in illness. We’ve got a long way to go before declaring the pandemic to be over.

Never mind what the Dunce in Chief says in Washington, D.C.