Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

Yes, bring on the vaccine!

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am astonished to learn that about one-third of Americans polled say they wouldn’t take a COVID vaccine if it is offered to them.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that two-thirds of us would take it.

You may count me as one American who is ready and more than willing to take the shot in my arm when it becomes available to folks such as me.

I am an elderly American. However, I suffer from zero pre-existing conditions. Which means I am a bit down the list of recipients. That’s OK. I am fine with that. The first responders need it now, as do nursing home residents.

Pfizer and Moderna both boast of 95 percent efficacy in their proposed vaccines. From what I have heard that is an exceptional success rate. Docs are calling it “extraordinary.” That is good enough for me.

I want to take the vaccine. I have long been a proponent of mandatory vaccines for children. I took them all as a kid because Mom and Dad insisted I become immunized against childhood illness. I passed that insistence on to my own sons when they were in school.

An anxious nation awaits Food and Drug Administration approval of the Pfizer vaccine. I am one anxious American. If the FDA gives it a “go,” and if the drug firm is able to get it distributed, I will wait patiently for my turn.

When they call my name, I will be there to take the vaccine.

local news, medical news

Wear a mask … dammit!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This item comes to me via social media from a friend of mine who lives in Amarillo, where my wife and I lived for 23 years before relocating in 2018 to Collin County.

My friend writes: The Amarillo “statistical metropolitan area” i.e. Potter and Randall counties, has 357 COVID-19 deaths. With a population of 265,053, that puts our deaths per million at 1,346 which is higher than all but 5 of the 50 states. Out of 220 countries only 4 have a higher death rate. Respect science. Respect your neighbor. Wear a Mask.

There you go. How in the world does one argue with that? How do you dismiss the advice given to us by infectious disease experts who tell us until they get hoarse to don masks, to observe social distancing, to stay away from indoor crowds, to wash your hands frequently?

Yet some of us are doing that. They are dismissing the advice. They are rebelling against government seeking to protect us from a deadly virus. Spoiler alert: The COVID virus has killed 280,000-plus Americans already and the death rate is accelerating.

President-elect Joe Biden plans to do two things when he takes office next month. One is that he will issue a directive that orders anyone working or doing business on federal property to wear masks; the other is that he is going to ask all Americans to wear a mask for the first 100 days of the Biden administration.

I hear you, Mr. President-elect. If only the rest of us would follow your lead.

national news

Rudy tests positive for COVID … why don’t I feel badly?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The man once known as America’s Mayor but who has become a laughingstock lawyer as Donald Trump concocts wild theories about election fraud has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

I am ashamed to admit this: Why don’t I feel badly that Rudy Giuliani has become infected? I suppose at one level I don’t want him to get deathly ill and suffer in agony. However, the man who stood tall in the wake of 9/11 as mayor of New York has devolved into a cartoon character, a buffoon, a Bozo the Clown as he mounts ridiculous arguments that seek to persuade us that voter fraud propelled Joe Biden to the presidency over Donald Trump.

The clown show goes on. Only 40-something days to go.

medical news

Yes, to Dr. Fauci staying on the job

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine that you’re the nation’s — if not the world’s — leading infectious disease doctor and you’ve been “advising” a president of the United States who dismisses your advice and calls you an “idiot.”

Then the president loses his re-election effort and you get a call from the fellow who beat him, the guy who pledged throughout his successful campaign that he would “rely on the science” to help set a course to battle a killer pandemic. He new president wants to you stay on as his “chief science adviser.”

What do you do? Well, you do what Dr. Anthony Fauci did when President-elect Joe Biden asked him to stay on. You say “yes” on the spot, which the president-elect said was Dr. Fauci’s response.

Uh, Mr. President-elect, you can count me as one American who is glad to know that you’re going to keep Anthony Fauci nearby to offer his best, learned advice on how to handle this pandemic. Joe Biden will become the eighth president for whom Fauci has worked.

All of them, Democrat and Republican alike — except for Donald J. Trump — have heeded his advice and plotted courses of action to battle prior medical emergencies based on what he has told them.

As for The Donald, his description of the Ivy League-educated physician and scientist as an “idiot” tells me all I need to know about the numbskull approach Trump has taken to the pandemic response.

national news

At least someone is talking about the pandemic

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I get that Joe Biden isn’t president of the United States just yet.

He insists that he knows we have only one president at a time. Indeed, we do. However, I am glad as the dickens that at least one leading political figure — that would be the president-elect — is talking to us candidly and openly and truthfully about the pandemic that continues to rage out of control.

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris sat down for their first post-election interview together with CNN anchor Jake Tapper. They spoke on a day when we set yet another hideous record for hospitalization and deaths from the pandemic.

Biden pledged that upon taking office he will issue an order declaring that anyone doing business or working on federal property will wear masks and will maintain social distancing.

Got that? Then he asked all Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of the Biden administration. The president-elect believes that if all Americans don masks and stay way from each other we will see a “dramatic decrease” in the infection rate. Well, I am going to heed his advice … we’ll just have to see how it plays out.

Back to my point, which is that the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, hasn’t seen fit to talk at all about the pandemic. Since he lost re-election on Nov 3, Trump has been preoccupied with sowing distrust in our electoral system. He won’t concede that Biden whipped his a** in the election.

Trump should be talking, too, about the pandemic. He should be meeting weekly, if not daily, with his White House pandemic response team that has been rendered virtually useless as Trump pouts over losing an election. Speaking of the response team, what in the world has become of Vice President Mike Pence, the man who is supposed to be in charge of that effort? He is MIA along with the president.

I am grateful beyond measure that the election turned out as it did. As everyone knows — and I have been willing to acknowledge — elections have consequences.

We are witnessing one of those consequences play out in real time as the president-elect steps into the breech that the current president has abandoned.

medical news

Fauci threatened for telling us the truth … amazing!

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Anthony Fauci might possess the strongest resolve of anyone in the United States of America.

Time magazine has declared Dr. Fauci to be one of its People of the Year for 2020. Do ya think?

The Hill newspaper reported: “I mean I’ve been doing this for 36 years as director of the (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases).” I’ve seen disagreements. I’ve seen political issues get in the way over the 36 years, but I’ve never seen the extent of the divisiveness which leads to hostility against public health measures,” he continued.

Fauci revealed earlier this year that he and his family, including his daughters, have received harassment over complaints about his public health recommendations during the pandemic, including wearing face masks or coverings. 

Let’s just ponder this for a brief moment.

Donald Trump brings an esteemed infectious disease expert aboard to help run a coronavirus response effort. Then he dismisses the expert’s advice, his wisdom and his call for caution. The dismissal brings out the lunatics among us who do things such as what Fauci has described. His daughters are harassed? Their lives are threatened? Is this for real?

And yet the good doctor continues to deliver the news we need to hear, eschewing the tendency to tell us what we — and Donald Trump — want to hear.

Does he deserve the recognition that Time is bestowing? Absolutely!

We do not yet know who will receive the coveted Person of the Year honor from Time. My own sense is that it should go to those on the front line of this fight against COVID-19: nurses, doctors, police officers, firefighters and educators.

Somewhere in all of that we can find a spot to insert Dr. Anthony Fauci’s name for him to receive the high honor and respect he has earned, not just for this fight but for all he has done to educate us about the danger of infectious disease.

national news, political news

Democracy: big winner of 2020 election

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s set aside — if we can — the idiotic challenges that Donald Trump continues to mount against our electoral system.

I want to declare that the big winner of the 2020 election was none other than democracy itself. I continue to watch the straggler votes being counted and am utterly amazed at the huge numbers being rung up by the vote counters.

Nationally, more than 157 million ballots were cast. President-elect Joe Biden captured 51.2 percent of them; Donald Trump collected 46.9 percent. Biden’s vote total is nearly 81 million ballots; Trump has collected more than 74 million. Trump can claim some sort of “moral” victory (although “moral” is a word I usually do not associate with Trump) in knowing he has the second-greatest vote total in U.S. history.

Why are these numbers so staggering? Because they came while the nation is suffering through a massive pandemic that has killed more than 270,000 Americans.

Politicians urged us to vote. The call came mostly from Democrats who wanted to ensure that Americans used their constitutional right. They encouraged us to vote early if possible. My wife and I voted on the first day of early voting in Texas. We were glad to do so.

Democracy came out the big winner. Our democratic process has survived. I am confident it will survive this farcical attempt by Trump to overturn the clear and decisive result that we all delivered on Election Day. It might take some time for democracy to recover from the wounds that Trump has inflicted by sowing all this doubt into the integrity of our democratic system … but it will. Of that I am supremely confident.

President Ford told us on the day he took office that “our Constitution works.” It has shown us yet again — in the midst of a deadly pandemic — that it remains resilient, sturdy and strong.

medical news

Vaccine, yes; anti-COVID measures, also yes!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel as though I am lecturing a child who likely knows what he or she is about to hear. Here goes nonetheless.

Vaccines that could eradicate the COVID-19 virus that has killed 270,000 Americans and sickened millions more are on the horizon. Does that mean we should relax? Do we now just forget about all the warnings we’ve been hearing and hopefully heeding for the past nine or 10 months?

Not just no, but hell no!

Pfizer and Moderna, two “big pharma” firms that are developing vaccines, are seeking Food and Drug Administration fast-track approval to begin distributing the vaccines; AstraZenena, a third firm that is developing a vaccine, likely is set to make the same request of the FDA.

I am hopeful and optimistic about the vaccines. Just so you know, I intend to be vaccinated as soon as it is available to me. I also know that I — along with my wife — likely will have to wait while others who need it more urgently get vaccinated.

We have been diligent in our house to protect ourselves against the virus. We mask up when we venture outside our house.  We maintain our distance from others. We use generous amounts of hand sanitizer. We wash our hands frequently … in our own home!

I intend fully to continue doing all of that even after I receive my vaccine.

The Dallas Morning News editorialized about all of this the other day, calling on us to refuse to let our guard down. We must not relax even with vaccines on the horizon.

We all know what’s happening out there. Infection, hospitalizations and deaths are up. Too many of us are ignoring the warnings. I heard Dr. Anthony Fauci, the premier infectious disease guru in the nation if not the world say that he has no problem with people accusing him of “overreacting” to the pandemic.

Indeed, it is far better to “overreact” and stay clear of the killer virus than to do the opposite.

I, too, plan to overreact.

national news

Do as he says, not as he does

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Not good, Mr. Mayor.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock made an impassioned plea to his constituents: Stay home over the Thanksgiving holiday to avoid spreading the COVID virus that’s still killing Americans.

Good advice? Sure it is.

What, then, did Hizzoner do? He boarded an airplane to fly to Mississippi to visit with family members.

Ouch, Mr. Mayor. C’mon, man. If you’re going to tell your constituents to do something that could save their lives, you need to set the example for others to follow.

He apologized to Denver’s residents. Hey, I am not one of them, but I accept his apology. Just do better from now on … OK?

 

national news

Hey, POTUS isn’t declaring COVID is ‘under control’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me that Donald Trump’s phony fixation with a “fraudulent” election has kept him from repeating yet another series of lies.

Which is that we have the COVID coronavirus “under control.”

It damn sure isn’t anything of the sort.

Deaths are escalating; infections are skyrocketing; we’re setting “records” for infection, hospitalization, mortality. Donald Trump is silent on the pandemic. Hell, he cannot stop repeating that other lie, which is that “widespread voter fraud” resulted in President-elect Biden’s victory over Trump in the Nov. 3 election.

I am not suggesting that Trump’s silence on the pandemic is a blessing. Oh, no. We need a president who can speak truth on the issue. Trump’s inability to tell us the truth on anything does not bestow positivity on his silence; it merely reminds us of Trump’s penchant for prevarication.

Indeed, his attention is now focused on another bit of “fake news,” which is the phony issue of “widespread” voter fraud that, to put it bluntly, does not exist.

The good news? Donald Trump will exit the office in January. The new president, Joe Biden, will tell us the truth about the pandemic.