Tag Archives: Covid 19

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

It’s no ‘hoax,’ Mr. POTUS

Joe Biden vows to restore our nation’s soul.

The presumed Democratic Party presidential nominee wants to lead the nation into a battle against the pandemic. I get it. I want him to take the reins of power soon.

His first order of business if he is able to assume the presidency in January is to wipe out the “h-word” from our political glossary of phony, fraudulent terms.

Donald Trump has called the pandemic a “hoax,” cooked up by Democrats, the “enemy of the people fake news” media. He refuses to enact a national strategy. He has sent myriad mixed messages, all of which do nothing but confuse governors, city and county officials, school administrators, and just plain folks like, um, you and me.

Trump’s initial response to the pandemic was to declare it would vanish like a “miracle.” The warm weather of the spring and summer would kill those nasty germs. Kill ’em dead.

Well, here we are, with 165,000 Americans gone forever. That number will climb and, so help me, we have no idea on Earth where it will top out.

Trump continues to boast about the job he and his response team are doing. Therein, I submit, lies the hoax. Trump’s so-called “success” is every bit the hoax.

Joe Biden promises to lead the nation. He vows to take charge. He promises to heed the science at every turn.

I am going to hold him to all of that. As you should, too. We all must demand that the new president deliver on this promise. The stakes for letting this status quo continue are too grim to even ponder.

The former VP wants to restore our national soul. I support that noble goal and want him to keep that promise.

The place to start is to eradicate the word “hoax” from the context of the grievous battle against a killer viral infection.

national news

Does he care … at all?

I just learned that Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo has tested positive for COVID-19.

Seliger is the latest individual with whom I have a relationship to have tested positive. Other friends of mine in Amarillo have gone into quarantine because of positive test results. So have our niece, her husband and their two young daughters. One of our sons thought he would test positive after being exposed to a work colleague who had come down with the virus; it turned out to be a false alarm.

This is my way of making a couple of points.

One is that the virus lurks all around us, as well as around you. It gives any reasonable person pause, requiring us to ensure we follow all the recommended measures we need to take to keep exposure at a bare minimum.

The second point concerns Donald J. Trump and his insistence that the virus is “under control.” Trump, too, has seen many folks with whom he works closely come down with the disease. His oldest son’s girlfriend has tested positive. So has the national security adviser. Same for several Joint Chiefs of Staff staff members, along with those who work on the National Security Council staff.

Yet through it all Donald Trump traipses blithely along, suggesting even now that 167,000 American deaths and more than 5 million of us facing hospitalization are nothing to worry about.

Bullsh**!

national news

Yes, a dilemma for sure

REUTERS/James Glover II

A Facebook friend of mine — someone with whom I am acquainted from my years in Amarillo — has posted a fascinated quandary that vexes many of us.

She writes: What a weird Catch 22 we’re in. If Donald Trump was competent and handled the crisis the way he should, and then the economy got back on track he would have a greater chance to be re-elected. God, what do you root for?!

Hmm. Interesting, yes? Well, I think it is.

We hear often how presidents who hand the office over to someone from the other political party wish their successor well. President Bush 41 famously wrote to President Clinton a letter in which he said he would root for the new president’s success. President Bush 43 said much the same thing to President Obama … who then said in a statement after Donald Trump was elected that he hoped for the new president’s success.

Trump’s tenure as president has presented many of us with a dilemma. Do we want the nation to suffer on any president’s watch? Of course not! I don’t wish pain and misery on my fellow Americans, let alone my friends and family members.

However, my loathing of Donald Trump seems to transcend all of that. I want him gone from my White House. I do not want to listen to his lies. I don’t want him to embarrass me. I love my country and revere the presidency too deeply to want this individual as my head of state/government/commander in chief.

It’s personal. It’s visceral. It has nothing to do with ideology … because Donald Trump does not govern according to any known ideology.

If only we could achieve some success in the COVID-19 fight, revive our economy — and then boot Trump out of office because of the terrible mess he has made along the way.

national news

Where’s the second-term message?

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Donald J. Trump continues to flail and flounder not only on the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic but also on the president’s re-election message.

I suppose the two things are connected, given that he can’t craft one strategy let alone two at the same time.

Truth be told, I care only about the first thing, the response to the coronavirus that has killed more than 160,000 Americans. I don’t give a sh** about the second matter, the re-election effort. I want his butt tossed out of the White House.

However, I want to look briefly at the consequences of Trump’s failure to craft a message worthy of re-election.

He is running against himself. Trump continues to paint a gloomy and forbidding picture of life in America. He’s been president for nearly four years. He was going to “drain the swamp,” provide health care for everyone, unify the nation, make America great again, put America first. He said that “I, alone” can do all those wonderful things.

He has failed to deliver the goods.

What’s left for him to promise? More of the same?

That ain’t a winning strategy. Again, it’s not that I want him to craft a vision for a second term. I want him kicked out. I want him as far away from the seat of power as he can possibly get.

One way for him to ensure his earliest possible departure — short of resigning from office in the next 15 minutes — is to continue on the clumsy path he has blazed for himself. That’s fine with me.

Joe Biden stands poised at this moment of relieving the nation of the misery that Trump has brought upon us all. That, of course, will depend on whether he can withstand the withering assault that is coming his way.

Look, the former vice president wasn’t my first choice to challenge Trump. Biden did survive a grueling primary process. He’s now the only choice we have. I now am all in.

The campaign will unfold –, given the pandemic’s effect on political life — in a way we haven’t seen ever before. Be smart, Joe. Be restrained. Be presidential, which I know you can do.

Just let Trump be Trump.

Sports news

Why not just scrap the season?

A part of the Lone Star Conference decision to “postpone” certain athletic activities has me puzzled.

The LSC has decided to postpone intercollegiate football and other sports until the spring, meaning that the student-athletes can start blocking and tackling for real during, oh, baseball season.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rattled LSC officials. They aren’t comfortable letting the athletes participate in the fall when their regular sporting events occur. Who in the world can blame them?

Why not just scrap the entire season? Just call it good. Football, soccer, volleyball and basketball will be there next academic year. So, why not just tell the student-athletes they will have to wait. Perhaps there’s a way to extend their eligibility a year to enable them to play these sports even if they have completed their academic work at their schools.

The impact is going to disrupt a lot of activity in communities where these LSC’s 18 schools are located. I am saddened for those who like attending football games on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

There will be some economic impact as well on the schools that derive income from attendance at football contests.

The overarching issue is the safety of the student-athletes. Allowing them close contact with fellow competitors while the nation is fighting a deadly infectious virus exposes them to too great a risk.

Let’s just call it a season. Wait until the next academic year … and hope we have this virus contained a whole lot better than we do at this moment.

national news

COVID won’t ‘disappear’

Donald Trump keeps repeating the lie that won’t die.

The coronavirus is going to “disappear,” he said today … again, for the umpteenth time since the pandemic first erupted.

He said it in February. Again in March, in April, May, June, July and now in August.

Trump keeps telling us the virus is just going to vanish. He said that’s what “things do.” They disappear, he said.

What about the deaths, Mr. President? When is this bozo going to say a single word of compassion, empathy, genuine sorrow for those who have died or for those who have lost loved ones?

He won’t. He’ll keep telling us the lie that won’t die.

Disgraceful.

national news

‘It is what it is’

There you have it.

Donald J. “Numbskull in Chief” Trump calls the death rate from the coronavirus pandemic a mere fact. That’s it. “It is what it is,” he said to Jonathan Swan, the Axios reporter who sought to get Trump to explain why the death rate in this country continues to soar.

He didn’t do it. Not only that, Donald Trump didn’t acknowledge the pain, the misery, the tragedy that has befallen more than 155,000 American families. He doesn’t speak to their suffering. Trump doesn’t offer words of comfort. He doesn’t turn to the TV camera and tell us he hurts right along with us.

He says of the death count “It is what it is.”

When in the annals of human suffering have we ever seen a president of the United States exhibit such utter callousness?

Donald Trump is presiding over a monumental failure of leadership in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic. What’s more, he continues to delude himself into believing he is doing a “fantastic” job.

It is shocking and repulsive in the extreme.

national news

The numbers don’t lie

As we watch Donald Trump try to short-sell the catastrophe that is killing Americans every single day, I want to remind everyone of a set of numbers that tell me one thing only.

The United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic is pitiful.

Consider that the U.S. population of 330 million people comprises less than 5 percent of the world total. Now, consider that 4 million confirmed infections from the coronavirus in the United States comprises about 25 percent of the world infection.

Five percent vs. 25 percent.

Does that suggest we are beating the virus? No. It does nothing of the sort.

Fatalities, anyone? More than 157,000 Americans have died from the virus … that we know about! India and China, two countries with more than 1 billion residents each, report far fewer deaths from the pandemic. Hmm. How come? I’ll concede that China, in particular, is capable of hiding those numbers from the world.

More Americans are dying daily in many states in this country than are dying in entire nations.

We aren’t winning this fight. Yet Donald Trump tells us that “It is what it is” when asked to comment on the death toll. Jumpin’ ever-loving jehosaphat, Mr. President!

He has no clue what he is doing. None!

medical news

COVID compounds our sorrow

I just received a tragic bit of news from a friend who lives in Amarillo.

His wife died this past spring. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She also had tested positive for COVID-19. My friend told me this: The worst part of it was that I didn’t get to see her the last 4 months. Her nursing home was in total lock down.

That statement, right there, should tell us all plenty about the terrible nature of the pandemic that has killed more than 152,000 Americans. More deaths will follow. We are not experiencing, as a senior Trump administration official said, a time of “triumph” in the fight against the pandemic.

This story has created an unheard-of phenomenon in many respects. One of them involves the isolation that COVID patients must endure. They cannot have family near them as they struggle for life. No friends. No loved ones. They die separated from those who cherish them the most.

Which arcs back to another aspect of this disease. It is the special relationships that nurses, doctors and care facility staff develop with these patients. Think of this for a moment. These medical responders become “surrogate loved ones” for the people in their care.

How many stories have you heard since early this year about nurses and physicians sobbing at the death of patients who cannot feel the embrace of their spouse, their children, their parents? I have lost count. Yet every story I hear told fills me with heartache that tugs just a little harder than the previous time.

Then there are the stories of patients who are released from medical care and reunited with the people who love them. The happiness we see and hear from the medical personnel is as joyous as the sadness felt at the end of the tragic stories.

My friend’s story is not unique to the larger world. To him, though, it is unbearable, unspeakable and unimaginable. It hurts to hear this news because of the unique misery it brings to those who must endure it.