By John Kanelis / [email protected]

One of the persistent sources of madness in this contemporary political climate has been the insistence by some on the right that the COVID vaccines, which are demonstrably successful in preventing the disease, should become the “enemy.”

We are witnessing a surge in illness among the unvaccinated Americans stricken by the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.

Indeed, what is shocking to me is how many Americans have been affected in a real way by the virus. Those of us who haven’t been stricken by it still know people who have. Many thousands of Americans have bid farewell to loved ones. Millions of others — such as my family and I — have had loved ones stricken by the disease.

We have lost friends to the disease. It’s a real threat to the nation’s health, you know?

The pandemic has hit all of us in some fashion.

And yet …

There remains this core of Americans who insist that the virus somehow, in some manner just isn’t as dangerous as those in the media and those damn medical experts have made it out to be.

They are absurdly wrong, of course. Too many of us know better. There are those of us who have watched our friends and family members get sickened by this killer virus.

The death count is 614,000 Americans and counting. The worldwide total is more than 4 million. These are not phony numbers. They are as real as the disease that has felled so many of us.

The vaccines are saving lives as I type these words. They are among the most devastating weapons we can deploy against the virus. Still, the deniers continue to drive me out of my mind.

Sigh … 

By John Kanelis / [email protected]

When you ponder all the infectious diseases that have been eliminated from Planet Earth over the years, you might then grasp the utterly absurdity of the criticism that is being leveled at the COVID-19 vaccine that is slowly doing the same thing to the current pandemic.

Polio has been eradicated. Smallpox, too. Same for tuberculosis. Measles and chicken pox are still around, but children get vaccinated against them anyway.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook that wondered whether the right-wing media outlets had been around when the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines were being distributed and whether they would be critical of those research efforts, too.

Of course they would!

We have entered some sort of political twilight zone. A U.S. president bungled the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it gripped the nation and the world. Instead of taking ownership of his mistakes and his failure, he initiates a campaign that denigrates the vaccine and those who promote it.

It has snowballed ever since, becoming a monstrous liability in the effort to get all Americans vaccinated against the killer disease and the variants it has spawned.

Good grief, man! The historical evidence is all around us that well-researched, heavily tested and certified vaccines do the job they are intended to do. Those who refuse to protect themselves and their children put not only themselves at risk, they pose an existential threat to us all.

They should be deemed a menace to society.

By John Kanelis / [email protected]

What in the name of sound medical science does it take for the cold, hard truth to sink in to some people’s noggins?

Many hard-right-wingers keep insisting that the COVID pandemic is over. That it’s OK to gallivant about sans face masks. That it’s time to  restore normal lifestyles. That it’s time to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the doomsayer who serves as senior medical adviser to President Biden.

One of them, rookie Republican U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson — the former physician who now represents the 13th Congressional District in the Texas Panhandle — has been particularly reprehensible in his messaging. “The pandemic is over,” he bellowed via Twitter recently.

No, Dr. Dipsh**! It’s not over. Have you seen the papers lately? The delta variant is sickening people, almost all of whom are not vaccinated.

Bottom line: The vaccines are working. Whether it’s from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson or Moderna, they’re doing what researchers intend for them to do, which is protect us.

I won’t toss stones at all Republicans. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said it is time for all Americans to get vaccinated. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has put out the call for vaccinations, too. Other Republicans in Congress have spoken forcefully in favor of the vaccines. However, they are being outshouted by the loons on the right wing of their party, the nut jobs who keep telling dangerous lies about the impact of the vaccines.

This struggle against the pandemic never should have devolved into the political mud-wrestling match it has become. But it has.

We need to pull together. All of us. In the same direction, with the same level of high energy to fight this killer.

What we need is what Gov. Ivey says is missing: “common sense.”