Tag Archives: vaccine

national news

GOP now joins the vaccine bandwagon

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There can be no excusing or even forgiving many prominent Republican U.S. politicians’ shameful denigration of the effort to vaccinate Americans against the COVID-19 virus.

Still, it is with a qualified feeling of gratitude that I welcome their insistence now that it is time for all Americans to get vaccinated.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell arguably is the most prominent GOP pol to climb aboard the vaccine bandwagon. Others are singing from that song sheet: U.S. House whip Steve Scalise, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, even Kevin McCarthy, the embattled House GOP leader. They’re on board, too.

It wasn’t that many weeks ago in which some GOP politicians were dismissing the vaccine. Some of the nut jobs among the Republican congressional caucus — namely the QAnon and Freedom Caucus cabal — continue to actually applaud Americans’ decision to forgo vaccination.

They are the loony birds among the politically powerful elite who hold tremendous sway among too many American voters.

President Biden laments the “pandemic among the unvaccinated” that is driving up infection/hospitalization/mortality rates in the country. Biden is fighting a GOP contingent in Congress and in statehouses across the nation that are arguing an opposite message. The sad truth is that the anti-vaxxers are winning the argument … at least for the time being.

A glimmer of good news, though, is surfacing among many Republican politicians who have decided that the more of their followers who get sick and possibly die from the virus, the less strong their political power base remains.

If they can persuade enough Americans to turn the tide against the variant that is sickening so many of us, then I might be willing to forgive them for their utter irresponsibility.

medical news

POTUS 45’s silence: reprehensible

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is beyond my capacity to understand the silence of one prominent American politician, but it requires me to lament it nonetheless.

The 45th president of the United States has received his vaccination against the COVID-19 virus, along with his wife and children.

It boggles my mind why the ex-POTUS doesn’t speak out now to encourage those among his millions of adherents to get vaccinated … just as he did!

He has remained silent. He says not a damn thing to encourage those who are most susceptible to the delta variant to get the vaccine that would protect them.

I mean, think of it in terms of political payback.

If this former Moron in Chief wants to run for the presidency again in 2024, it would serve his political interest to keep them around. Right?

Do not misunderstand me. I do not want this reprehensible individual to reap any political benefit. Were he to possess an ounce of empathy or compassion POTUS 45 would step up and seek to dispel the hideous misinformation that has seeped into the minds of those who have refused to receive the vaccine that could save their lives. Doing so well could prevent governments at all levels from reinstating restrictions that no one wants them to do.

The evidence of the delta variant’s impact is clear. It is sickening and killing un-vaccinated Americans at a far greater rat than it is harming those who are vaccinated.

Didn’t the ex-POTUS run for the nation’s highest office proclaiming to be a “populist”? My definition of the term tells me he is supposed to favor policies and make pronouncements that benefit the non-rich among us. Except that he isn’t a populist. He is a serial liar and con man.

That reality likely makes my humble plea an exercise in futility.

Instead of spreading The Big Lie about phony voter fraud and suggesting he will be “reinstated” as POTUS by the end of the summer, the former Imbecile in Chief can perform — finally! — an act of public service.

How? Just tell his fanatics to get vaccinated!

medical news

‘Pandemic of unvaccinated’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

No one — and I mean not a single sane human being — wants to welcome this latest medical nightmare.

Which is that COVID-19 cases are on the increase, as are hospitalizations and, oh yeah, deaths from the worldwide pandemic.

Who’s responsible for this distressing turn of events? President Biden calls it the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” That is a mantra repeated late this week by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rachelle Wallensky.

Think of this for just a moment.

Those who dismiss the vaccines, who refuse to take them, who believe the foolishness being spread out there (that they turn bodies in magnets and plant the spores of Satan into our skulls) have contributed to this horrible new wave of infection and death.

CDC officials report the greatest spike in infection/hospitalization/death come from those parts of the country with the lowest vaccination rates. Those happen to be mostly in the southern part of the nation. Hmm. What does one make of that? Is there a political component to this horrible news? I happen to believe there is, but I’ll save that for another blog post.

Today I am concerned about my own family. Almost all of us are full vaccinated. The only one who hasn’t received the vaccine is our granddaughter, our 8-year-old. She will get hers soon.

But what does this mean for those of us who have been vaccinated? I keep hearing reports of fully vaccinated Americans being stricken by that delta variant COVID-19 strain that is knocking the stuffing out of us.

My wife and had not jettisoned our masks. We had them handy, partly for occasions such as what we are discussing today: a resurgence of the virus.

With that said, we’re donning our masks once again when we venture into public places with other human beings, many of whom do not bother with the masks. I don’t wish them ill, but I do wish they would follow our lead — my bride and me — and cover their faces while they mingle with the rest of us.

Oh, and the vaccines still are safe. They still are effective. They still are preventing needless headache, heartache and hysteria.

If only we all would heed the advice of highly trained medical professionals to get vaccinated.

local news, medical news, State news

Get vaccinated, Texans!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t good news, folks.

Texans like to boast about how our state is No. 1. Well, we are far from No. 1 in the rate of inoculation against that killer virus, the COVID-19 pandemic that’s still killing too many of us.

The Texas Tribune reports that the state has inoculated about 43 percent of its population fully against the virus.

I was struck by the results coming from Amarillo and from Beaumont, two communities where I used to live. Amarillo had been vaccinating at double the state rate. Then the good folks of the Panhandle decided to stop exceeding the state standard. Amarillo’s fully vaccinated rate stands at 30 percent, a good bit below the state inoculation rate.

The Beaumont-Port Arthur metro area fares even worse, with just 28 percent of its residents claiming to be fully vaccinated.

I don’t know about you, but I believe that is disconcerting news to say the least. At worst it is frightening, given the spike in that the “delta variant” now accounts for about 25 percent of the new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/06/coronavirus-texas-vaccination-amarillo/

President Biden keeps telling us that it is the “patriotic” thing to do to get vaccinated. The first time I heard him say it, I though the then-new president was overstating the importance. No more, man! I now am on board fully with Joe Biden’s summoning our patriotic spirit in fighting the virus.

I have been using High Plains Blogger to extol the message. And I will continue to speak out on this forum. It’s the best avenue at my disposal to say what I believe needs to be said.

I am able to speak with a clear conscience about vaccination. I am fully vaccinated, as is virtually my entire immediate family. We stand proudly as those who heeded the call to get the vaccine. To be sure, we have paid a hefty price from the pandemic. Two of our immediate family members were hospitalized with symptoms; one of those family members became, in the words of the medical staff tending to her, “seriously ill” from the virus, which means we could have lost her. I thank God Almighty each day that we didn’t.

This is all my way of urging everyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine to get the medication shot into your body. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and practically every medical expert on Earth say the vaccines are safe; they are effective; they will protect you and those with whom you come in contact.

As for my former neighbors in far-reaching regions of this vast state who continue to resist the vaccine, they are playing a dangerous game.

Note: A version of this blog was published initially on KETR.org.

State news

GOP no longer ‘pro-business’ party?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you thought that the Republican Party is the “pro-business” political organization, you might want to rethink that now-quaint notion.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican (of course), has signed a bill into law that punishes business for demanding that customers prove they have been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, the one that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans.

It seems that Abbott believes people have no need to prove to anyone they have been vaccinated against a highly communicable, infectious and still potentially fatal disease.

Sure thing, guv.

He can count me as one Texas resident has no problem providing proof to anyone that I have been vaccinated. Indeed, my wife and I got our shots relatively early and have been adhering to the mandates sought by federal medical authorities: masks, social distancing, frequent hand-washing, and so on.

The Texas Tribune reports: “Texas is open 100%, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” Abbott said before signing the law, in a video he posted Monday on Twitter. “Vaccine passports are now prohibited in the Lone Star State.”

Sigh …

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs bill to restrict “vaccine passports” | The Texas Tribune

I am puzzled by the notion that a political party that used to tout its love for private business and sought to grant business owners relative autonomy from government interference is now endorsing this heavy-handed approach to preventing them from protecting their employees and those they serve.

medical news

Vaccine arguments: idiocy

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The debate in this country over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that can kill you simply is astonishing in the extreme.

I cannot get past this utterly irrefutable fact: vaccines save lives and prevent misery, agony and heartache.

Polio struck millions of Americans. Then in the 1950s, they discovered a vaccine. What happened to polio in this country? It vanished. The same can be said of tuberculosis and smallpox. Same for diseases such as scarlet fever, the bubonic plague. We vaccinate our children against measles, mumps, chicken pox, you name it.

But now we have a disease that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans and the debate rages over whether we should get vaccinated. I even have members of my family who suggest — and this just blows my mind — that the Food and Drug Administration didn’t actually approve the vaccines that are being given to Americans and that these family members simply refuse to get vaccinated because, um, it’s all political.

We need to get past the politics that has poisoned the national discussion about the pandemic and how the government has responded to it. If we do not, then I am confident in projecting many more unnecessary deaths … and heartbreak.

economic news, national news

POTUS punished for good deeds?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It really must be true that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Consider the following:

President Biden took office in January as the nation was struggling to cope with the COVID pandemic. He promised tens of millions of vaccines in his first 100 days. He succeeded gloriously in outpacing that projection.

Then came a surge in consumer demand of supplies they couldn’t purchase because of restrictions caused by the pandemic. The worldwide supply chain has been strained as manufacturers struggle to meet the immense demand.

The punishment comes in the form of inflation that now has the White House troubled by the impact of that huge demand and the still-limited supply.

The Hill reports: All of those factors combined to push the consumer price index (CPI) up 0.8 percent in April and 4.2 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest annual rate since 2008, the Labor Department reported this past week. When stripping out the more volatile prices for food and energy, the index registered the biggest monthly increase since 1982.

While the ramped-up consumer spending is a sign of increased optimism, the Biden administration faces political risks as Americans find themselves dealing with inflation levels that the country hasn’t seen in more than a decade.

Inflation fears grow for White House (msn.com)

Joe Biden is a seasoned political hand. He knows he will get pilloried for the inflation. There is no way on God’s good Earth he is going to apologize for the accelerated vaccine distribution and vaccination rates that have contributed to the “crisis” resulting in the inflationary pressure.

national news

Politicization: astounding and moronic

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Never did I think back when I was bringing two boys through childhood and into their teen years that we would engage in an astonishing — and frankly moronic — debate over vaccination against an infectious killer.

When our sons required vaccines, they received them. No questions asked. No concerns over the damn politics of the moment.

They were inoculated against polio, smallpox, flu, measles, chicken pox, mumps … you name it.  So was I. So was their mother.

Here we are now. The COVID-19 virus has killed nearly 600,000 Americans and 2 million or so around the world and yet Americans are arguing among themselves over whether to receive one of three certified vaccines that have been deemed overwhelmingly effective against the disease.

And why is that? Why are we debating it? Because some of us still cling to the idiocy that the pandemic isn’t real, that it’s a hoax, that it is the product of some conspiracy cabal intent on doing something, anything to bring mysterious harm to us.

OK, I know … we’ve got that J&J vaccine that’s been reapproved for use after that overblown scare involving six women who contracted serious blood clots after taking that vaccine. Six out of — how many? — 2 million doses. That sent red flags up everywhere.

Meanwhile, President Biden’s medical team is trying to tell us that the vaccines — all of them — are safe for human use.

Most of us are listening. Others are not. There have been arguments at family dinner tables over the vaccines and over whether we should be vaccinated.

It makes me want to pull out my hair!

local news

COVID vaccines abound for foreigners, too?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Panhandle media are reporting that flights are arriving from Mexico carrying so-called “elites” who are getting vaccinated in Amarillo against the COVID-19 virus.

A news report from KVII Channel 7 says the flights are departing from near Mexico City, stopping in San Antonio and then going to Amarillo where passengers are getting the vaccines.

What is not being reported, and which could place this matter in its proper context, are the numbers of foreign nationals who are getting the vaccines. Is it in the dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

I doubt it’s in the thousands of individuals. Hundreds might be a stretch.

Foreign elites flying to Amarillo for vaccination | KVII (abc7amarillo.com)

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, the area’s newly elected congressman, said he opposes giving the shots to foreigners. He doesn’t stipulate, though, whether any local residents are being deprived of the vaccine. He said in a statement: “If this report is true, it is a serious problem. Amarillo should not be a hub for medical tourism at the expense of hardworking Texans. Non-citizens should not receive the COVID-19 vaccine in our state until all Texans who want a vaccine are vaccinated — bottom line.”

Amarillo has become something of a case study for how administering this vaccine is supposed to work. The inoculation protocol there reportedly has gone very well, and it has gotten the attention from those around the nation — and apparently across our borders.

If there remain enough vaccines for everyone, then I do not see a problem.

medical news

Politics overpowering pandemic battle

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the more astonishing aspects of this fight against the coronavirus pandemic — and there have been so many of them — has been the political tug-of-war over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 500,000-plus Americans.

On one side we have the MAGA-hat crowd, the folks who continue to stand with an ex-president who spent much of the previous year denying the pandemic was anything to cause worry. They oppose getting vaccinated.

It fell, then, on Dr. Anthony Fauci — the world’s leading infectious disease expert — to implore Donald Trump to encourage his minions to get vaccinated. The ex-president did so and for that I applaud him.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how vaccination protocols have become something to kick around like a proverbial political football.

The evidence of all three U.S. government-approved vaccines’ efficacy is overwhelming. They are helping curb the infection, hospitalization and death rates. Still, we hear reports of individuals declining to get vaccinated because of some lie that refuses to be exterminated that the vaccines aren’t working.

In a related matter, we also hear about individuals refusing to wear masks while doing business with companies that their customers to wear them. Did you see the video of the woman in Galveston getting arrested in a bank because she refused to mask up even though bank policy requires her to do so? She shouts idiotic cliches about her “personal liberty” being infringed by rules aimed at protecting her life and those with whom she comes into contact. Ridiculous!

If there is a sign that the politicization of society has veered out of control, I believe we are seeing it play out in real time … at this very moment. It has to stop!