Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

COVID deaths overcounted? Really?

Can it be that Joni Ernst is really and truly that much of a nitwit?

The Iowa Republican U.S. senator has said that the nation’s death count from the coronavirus pandemic might be exaggerated because doctors and other medical workers get greater reimbursements related to COVID deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the death count at 184,000 … and rising.

Sen. Ernst is offering yet another GOP-hatched conspiracy theory that flies in the face in the counter evidence that suggests that the death count might be even greater than what the CDC is reporting.

Why is that? Because there might be a hidden number of deaths that weren’t diagnosed as being related to the virus. That number could be thousands more than what CDC is telling us.

Is this a function of a lack of tests to determine infection rates? Might it be that poor Americans who don’t have access to proper medical treatment are succumbing to the disease without ever knowing they were infected in the first place?

I happen to one American who is more inclined to believe in the undercounted notion than the one that Ernst is pushing.

national news

Go away, 2020

I want to enthusiastically endorse the notion expressed in this social media post that showed up on my Facebook feed today.

This year has sucked … out loud!

The pandemic, the violence, the unrest, the racial tension, the widening political divide in the nation.

We have lost 180,000-plus Americans to the pandemic. Many thousands of those folks died alone. Their loved ones couldn’t hold their hands as they slipped into the great beyond. The nurses, doctors, technicians have been pushed into the role of surrogate “loved ones” replacing those who were blocked from sitting with Mom, Dad, Wife, Husband, Brother, Sister, Daughter, Son.

The pandemic has destroyed weddings, school graduations and, yes, funerals.

Then there have been the African-American men who died at the hands of rogue police officers. They have been shot, suffocated and otherwise harassed. The Black Lives Matter movement has erupted.

Yep, 2020 should become a curse word.

What can redeem this hideous year? I’ll tell you what would do it for me: a presidential election that turns out the correct way.

national news

‘You won’t be safe … ‘

Vice President Mike Pence issued a stern warning to Republicans who believe Donald Trump deserves to be re-elected president of the United States.

“You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Pence intoned with all the seriousness and gravity he could muster at the GOP convention this week.

But wait! How safe are many Americans today … in Donald Trump’s America? Not very. Especially if you’re black and you are unfortunate enough to get into an argument with a police officer. What about the concern for those Americans, Mr. VPOTUS and Mr. POTUS?

Well, Pence isn’t wading into that thicket. He chooses instead to follow Trump’s lead, suggesting that the “suburbs” will come under attack by inner-city residents who move into the ‘burbs to escape the criminals who do damage to all Americans.

Hey, it’s a race thing. We all know the game that Trump and Pence are playing. They want to suggest that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominees, are going to loose the criminal element on society. They will go soft on criminals, they will throw open our borders to illegal immigrants, they will seek to dismember the Second Amendment and disarm Americans.

It’s all a bunch of horse dookey. You know it as well as I know it. Yet Trump and Pence would have us buy into the crap they’re peddling that Trump’s America is a safe haven set to be overtaken by hordes of criminals if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are elected president and vice president.

The plain truth is that Donald Trump’s America ain’t so great at this moment. We’re fighting that pandemic, which has killed 182,000 Americans with more to fall victim. Racial unrest has reached a boiling point and Trump is doing not a damn thing to soothe our nation.

That isn’t how Trump is portraying the state of play in the U.S. of A. He tells lies about what he has allegedly has done to curb the pandemic and all he has done for African-Americans.

What’s more, he paints a grim picture of what life will be like if he gets booted from the presidency. I am one American patriot who believes that occurrence will be cause for joy.

local news

Accepting the new normal

I just completed an errand run that took me to a grocery store, an automobile parts department, a battery shop and a bank lobby.

What do these places have in common? Every customer and business employee were masked up.

This is the new normal, or at least part of the new normal that I am finding more acceptable by the day. Actually, wearing a mask before entering a business has become virtually second nature to me.

This is how we must cope with life in the Age of the Pandemic. Or, at least until they find a vaccine that makes us (more of less) immune from it.

I don’t wear my mask out of some patriotic fervor, as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has suggested as a reason to wear a mask. I don’t wear it to make a political statement of any sort, which is what fans of Donald Trump have suggested.

Oh, no. I wear the mask because I subscribe the theory promoted by medical experts that they help keep us clear of the killer virus.

I maintain social distance whenever possible; at times it isn’t, such as at the parts department today when several of us got crowded in a corner of the room. But we were all masked up!

Of all the new normal activities that still annoy me, I have to say this fist-bumping, and elbow-bumping when we greet people drives me a bit nuts. I am a handshake guy. I have a firm handshake and I enjoy grasping someone’s hand — be it a stranger or a friend — just to let them know I am glad to see them. I don’t have a bone-crushing grip … you know, like the one Superman used in “Superman II”  where he pulverized Zod’s hand.

The mandates about masks, social distancing and all the other preventative measures are OK by me. Indeed, it seems a bit strange to look around and hardly even notice that everyone is wearing a mask.

It’s called adaptability, man.

national news

Errors of omission aplenty

Republican National Convention speakers have been criticizing their Democratic convention colleagues for what they have called an egregious error of omission.

Democrats, they say, should have talked about the violence that has erupted in many of our cities as Americans have protested police conduct in the wake of the deaths of African-Americans.

That’s a fair point. The DNC should have spoken to that issue at their virtual convention a week ago.

However, let’s not let the RNC escape similar critiques of its message. The GOP that has nominated Donald Trump and Mike Pence for a second term has yet to address the terrible heartache, misery and death associated with the COVID crisis. Yes, they have acknowledged the existence of the crisis. They have said nothing about how it has affected the loved ones of those who have died or the economic collapse that has occurred as a result of the pandemic.

Therein, I submit, exists the error of omission on the Republicans’ part in this political game of Can You Top This?

Republicans continue to portray Donald Trump’s initial pandemic response as courageous, forceful, bold, proactive … all that happy horse dookey. It was none of that. They know it as well as you and I know it. Do not expect them to come clean by the time the convention wraps up.

I just want Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to remind voters of the start choice awaiting them. Do they want more of the same chaotic incompetence or a return to compassion, empathy and actual presidential leadership?

You know already where I stand.

local news

Be safe, friends … and others

We have some dear friends on the Texas Gulf Coast who are made of mighty stern stuff, as are all the residents living from Orange all the way down the coast to Corpus Christi … and beyond.

They have been fighting, along with the rest of the nation, the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they are facing another sort of wrath delivered by Mother Nature.

Hurricane Laura is bearing down on the Golden Triangle, which comprises the territory around and including the cities of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange. Our friends live throughout the region. The National Weather Service has just elevated Laura to a Category 4 storm, which it defines as “very dangerous.”

I am hearing from a number of my friends. They’re vowing to power through it. One family that lives in Orange County is high-tailing it to the Hill Country to stay with their son while the storm comes calling. They remain confident their house will survive.

Another friend in Beaumont tells me not to worry, that they’ve been through this before, they’ll go through it again and that he is fully stocked with cold beer and ice for his other adult beverages. OK, dude. Be safe as well.

I am proud of their toughness and their fortitude. My pride in them does not forestall our concern for their safety.

Many of them will read these words. So this message is directed to them as they prepare to face the storm that will bring high wind, plenty of rain and that dreaded storm surge off the Gulf that might sweep as far as 30 miles from the shoreline.

We went through a few of those storms ourselves during our nearly 11 years of living in Beaumont. I have plenty of empathy for them.

My heart is pounding and hoping everyone in the path of the storm stays safe.

national news

Way to go, Joe

I am joining the chorus of Joe Biden supporters to declare that Thursday night’s presidential nomination acceptance speech, while perhaps not a grand slam home run, could pass as a stand-up triple.

I am giving the Democratic presidential nominee credit for stepping up his game, for offering a glimpse into the future he foresees if he gets elected president and for reminding us — without overdoing the rancor — that Donald Trump has failed in his primary mission as president, which is to protect Americans.

The former vice president had a big hurdle to clear. It was erected the previous night by vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and, of course, by former President Barack Obama and their respective speeches to the nation.

Biden cleared the hurdle. I am more than satisfied with how he comported himself and how he delivered an important message to those of us who wanted to hear what the nominee had to say.

My major takeaway? Joe Biden intends to lead us out of the darkness and into the light.

Even on his best days, Donald Trump cannot stop alleging that America has lost its way, that we no longer were great, strong and economically healthy when he took office. Trump has told those myriad lies for too long.

Joe Biden reminded us that the pandemic needed Trump’s attention from the very beginning. As a result of his early denials of the seriousness of the COVID crisis, we have lost too many American lives and seen too many more infected by the killer virus.

Trump and the Republicans get their turn next week. They, too, will conduct a virtual convention, with Trump set to accept his party’s nomination with a speech delivered from the White House.

I’ll state it once more: My mind is made up. There is no way on God’s precious and fragile Earth that Trump will earn my support. However, I intend to watch the Republican show if only to see how they intend to defend the indefensible … which is Donald Trump’s record in the only public office he ever had sought.

political news

The more the better

Democracy is a “participation sport.”

That is to say that the more citizens who participate in the democratic exercise of voting, the more representative the government that results is of the people it is designed to protect and defend.

This is my way of furthering an argument I used to make while working in daily print journalism. I aimed the argument at voters who failed to participate in local elections. Local government elections generally draw abysmal voter turnouts. I witnessed it in Oregon and Texas, where I worked for nearly 37 years as a journalist.

I sought to urge voters to cast their ballots so they would have a voice in the government that sets tax policy, determines the quality of law enforcement and fire protection, picks up the trash and provides water for us to drink.

So … how does this logic play out now as the nation prepares to elect a president of the United States? The same argument applies.

However, Donald Trump and his Republican pals want to suppress voter turnout. We have a pandemic raging across the country. Millions of voters are afraid of getting sick by voting on Election Day; they want to vote by mail. Trump opposes that idea, promoting a specious argument that mail-in voting is inherently corrupt. Except that it isn’t corrupt.

The Trumpkin Corps wants us to believe we cannot vote by mail without our ballots being stolen or compromised in an unspecified nefarious manner.

It is imperative that we do all we can to encourage more voters to decide this election. Not fewer of them. I do not want others to determine who we elect as president of the United States.

If we are able to vote by mail, I intend to cast my vote in that fashion. Absent that, I intend to vote early in Texas, even though I have a lengthy history of reciting on this blog my loathing of early voting. My preference is to vote on Election Day as a hedge against the candidate of my choice doing something stupid or criminal that makes me regret my vote.

The pandemic changes that dynamic for me.

Thus, it should be imperative that we allow more people to vote. The reasons are as straightforward as they are regarding local elections.

Democracy works better when more citizens — not fewer of them — take part in this fundamental element of living in a free society.

medical news, national news

Success slips away in COVID fight

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

The signs all around us tell a grim tale of failure, not success, in the ongoing battle against the COVID-19 virus that continues to sweep across the world’s wealthiest, most advanced nation.

The U.S. death toll has surpassed 170,000; the infection toll is more than 5 million. More telling is that that infection rate is accelerating, meaning that more people are getting sick every day than they were, say, a month ago.

And yet, Donald Trump keeps telling us we’re succeeding. Really, Mr. President? How in the name of medical science can this fellow possibly claim a success rate when we’re getting sicker by the day and when the fatalities keep mounting.

Remember, too, this little factoid: The United States comprises roughly 4 percent of the world’s population, but we account for roughly 25 percent of the world’s infection from the coronavirus.

Four percent vs. 25 percent. Hmm. That comparison simply blows my mind.

Against all of that, we’re going to hear from Donald Trump’s re-election team that we’re doing great. The nation’s economy is adding jobs at a stupendous rate. They will look straight past the monumental job loss that occurred when the pandemic tightened its grip on our business community, costing us roughly 30 million jobs over a three-month span.

That job loss, I should add, eliminated all the jobs created during the decade-long economic expansion that began on the watch of President Barack H. Obama, who took office in January 2009 amid the then-worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The current economic collapse makes the 2008-09 Great Recession look timid and tepid by comparison.

I mention all of this because I will await word on how Donald Trump intends to defend his response to the global pandemic. To my way of thinking — and perhaps the thinking of most Americans — his initial non-response has produced the infection and death rates that are now savaging our nation.

So, yes, Donald Trump must take responsibility for the misery he caused by failing to respond quickly and decisively enough when the pandemic first presented itself.

How does Donald Trump defend his pitiful record against what we know has transpired?

national news

The moment swept me away

I find myself at times trying to avoid getting caught up in moments when I see things occurring in real time.

It happened to me Monday night watching the opening of the Democratic National Committee’s virtual presidential nominating convention.

I have no need to stipulate that I want Joe Biden to become the next president. Oops! I just did!

Watching the assorted celebrities, politicians and oh yes, former first lady Michelle Obama make their case for why Biden is the right man at the right time to correct the wrong policies that Donald Trump has enacted almost swept me out of my chair.

The first night event was quite stirring, with testimonials from pandemic victims’ loved ones, from Republican politicians speaking on behalf of a Democratic politician. I also must give a shout out to the spine-tingling way the DNC presented the singing of the National Anthem.

I am left to wonder: How are the Republicans going to top this? How does Trump make anyone apart from the fervent base feel better about re-electing him as president? What is he going to say? How is he going to say it?

I am acutely aware that the Republican National Committee has its share of marketing geniuses and gurus. They’ll put on a show, too. Right now I am having difficulty imagining how they will top what the Democrats are prepared to deliver as the 2020 presidential campaign kicks into high gear.