Tag Archives: pandemic

medical news

The big takeaway from this crisis is …

Make no mistake about it, if there is a singularly positive outcome from the coronavirus pandemic, it well might be the enduring gratitude we all should feel toward those who are risking their lives in the front-line fight against this killer disease.

I refer specifically to the world’s medical personnel, the firefighters and police officers.

Doctors, nurses and various medical technicians are falling ill constantly, 24/7, as they treat patients in hospitals all over the world. Many of them die as a result. Many others are fortunate to recover from the disease. What do they do, how do they respond?

They suit up — don their masks, gloves and rubber suits — and head right back into the fight! That’s what they’re doing.

Communities are making noise already in appreciation for what they’re doing on our behalf. In New York City, the epicenter of the crisis, residents are clamoring each night at 7 to honor the men and women who are thrusting themselves into harm’s way; they stand on street corners, on balconies, in front of shuttered businesses and they bang pots and pans.

It’s the very least we can do to offer an expression of profound gratitude to these folks’ unimaginable bravery.

Let us not ever lose sight of what we are witnessing in real time as the world struggles against this pandemic.

It is awe-inspiring.

economic news

Socialism then; now it’s, um, acceptable

Yesterday’s socialist initiative has become an act of economic genius … in the eyes of many political observers.

I am confused.

Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009 and went to work immediately to look for ways to rescue an economy in free fall. We were shedding tens of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment was climbing toward 10 percent. The new president had to act quickly.

He and Congress managed to cobble together a massive bailout program. It helped shore up banks, the auto industry, the airline industry. Congressional Republicans and their friends in conservative media called it the most dangerous lurch toward socialism in American history.

The world was ending. Earth was going to spin off its axis. The sky would fall on us. The world as we knew it would end.

None of that happened. President Obama acted decisively, as did Congress. The loans sent out were paid back with interest. Job growth mounted. Unemployment fell. We began to pay down the federal budget deficit. The economy recovered.

Barack Obama left office in 2017. Donald Trump took over. Trump inherited a robust economy. Job growth continued. Joblessness fell to historic lows.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic that hit early this year.

People started getting infected with a disease. Then citizens began to die. Businesses shut down. Workers got furloughed. Cities, counties and states issued stay at home orders. Our streets fell silent.

The government then had to cobble together another stimulus package. This one totaled $2.2 trillion. The checks are in the mail. Billions went to businesses.

Where, I have to ask, are the accusations of a socialist initiative? Where is the righteous indignation and anger among conservatives that the government is grabbing private industry by the throat?

Remember that this initiative came from a Republican president, was approved by a GOP-run Senate as well as by a Democrat-run House. Some Democrats yammered that the bailout was too friendly to big business and doesn’t do enough for working families. However, it sailed through Congress with a bipartisan approval.

Times have changed, yes? Actually, not as much as some would have us believe. The opposition party in 2009 comprised a lot of fear-mongering demagogues. Today’s opposition resists on vastly different grounds but in the end it signed on to do the right thing.

Very strange.

national news

Do not ‘re-open’ the country on May 1, Mr. POTUS

I am not a doctor, nor do I portray one on TV. Moreover, I don’t pretend to be a medical expert who stands in front of reporters each day in the White House press briefing room.

I am just an American citizen who loves my country beyond measure. Thus, I want to implore the president who masquerades as a medical genius to abandon any thought of “re-opening” the nation by May 1.

To do so likely would put millions of our fellow countrymen and women in dire peril of exposure to the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus.

How do I know that? I don’t. I am endorsing the view being expressed by medical experts who say that May 1 is far too early for the president to make any such declaration, to say that, “Hey, it’s OK for businesses to resume ‘normal’ activity.”

Our schools in Texas are closed at least until May 4. I would be willing to bet the mortgage that Gov. Greg Abbott won’t allow the public school system to open, that he’ll likely order them closed for the remainder of the academic year. That’s fine with me.

The president, I should add, has no real authority to re-open anything. That power rests farther down on the chain of command, with governors, county officials, mayors and city councils.

The president does have the power of the bully pulpit, which he can use to maximum effectiveness. This president, though, too often uses that power recklessly. Were he to declare that business is open on May 1 would provide a glaring example of recklessness.

This nation needs to test many more of its citizens before we can declare that the coronavirus is being defeated. To date, we have tested about 1 percent of our population. One percent! How can the medical authorities make any determination with such a minuscule sample of our nation’s population? They cannot!

Yes, we hear that the infection rate in some areas is decreasing, as is the death rate of those who have been diagnosed with the disease. That’s welcome news. We all should pray that the trend continues.

The First of May is just three weeks away. That is too soon to lift the restrictions.

No one wants to keep living like this forever. A premature return to the way it was, though, only threatens to lengthen — and possibly worsen — the restrictions we are facing.

Worse than that, it threatens to sicken and kill more Americans.

national news

‘New normal’ will require serious change of at least one habit

Dr. Anthony Fauci said it, so it must be true. He’s our preeminent infectious disease expert and his voice has become a source of reassurance in the midst of some of the confusion being sown by Donald J. Trump.

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic that still is sweeping across the globe, we’re starting to prepare for what’s being called “the new normal” once we get past the health crisis.

One aspect of the new normal, as stated by Dr. Fauci, is that we no longer should shake hands with those we meet. Eek. That means, oh, fist bumps, elbow bumps, locking pinkies?

I am an inveterate hand-shaker. I like shaking hands with strangers. It’s a way to establish a sort of cursory relationship. Dr. Fauci has said that ought to become a relic, something we no longer should do … if we are serious about keeping the coronavirus outbreak from recurring.

I guess we’ll also be keeping some distance from each other. The six-foot rule will stand in perpetuity, yes? I can deal with that more easily than getting rid of my hand-shaking habit.

The “new normal” is beginning to take some form out there. Get ready for it.

local news, Sports news

Pandemic stalls these fans’ enjoyment

I feel fairly confident in presuming that my many friends and acquaintances in Amarillo, Texas, are about to lose their baseball-loving minds these days.

The season of their beloved Amarillo Sod Poodles has been delayed indefinitely while the nation wages war against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Sod Poodles are supposed to be playing hardball by now. They had their home opener planned for next Thursday. They were supposed to open the defense of their Texas League championship. The home opener was slated to allow the team to have a trophy presentation and the team was going to take a bow for winning the AA league championship in their initial season playing ball in Amarillo.

The ceremony ain’t gonna happen … at least not just yet!

The coronavirus requires what’s been called “an abundance of caution.” There’s no way to stuff 7,000 cheering fans safely into Hodgetown, the Sod Poodles’ home ballpark in downtown Amarillo. I’m not sure when Americans will get the all clear from the federal government, or from the state or from cities and counties.

Indeed, there might not even be an “all clear” coming from the government. There could be a “partially clear” or a “conditional clear” issued at some point in the reasonably near future.

As I’ve been doing for some time now, I will continue to root for the Sod Poodles from afar. I hope to attend a game — or more — in nearby Frisco when the Sod Poodles come here to play the Roughriders.

I’ll just have to preach the mantra of patience. As the saying goes: This, too, shall pass.

national news

Pence’s pettiness is so unbecoming

You have pettiness … and then you have Vice President Mike Pence.

The VP, who heads the Trump administration coronavirus pandemic response task force, has issued the strangest decree I can imagine.

He has ordered Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx — the task force’s preeminent medical experts on infectious disease — to stop appearing on CNN. Why? Because the network has chosen not to cover the entire task force briefings, which almost daily devolve into a campaign riff Donald J. Trump.

The president says nothing of importance at these briefings. Fauci and Birx, though, do offer expertise and knowledge of the fight in which we are engaged. CNN has chosen to report later what the principals say rather than covering them live.

That’s not good enough, says Pence.

If the briefings concentrated exclusively on the medical issues and if they focused more on the doctors than on the president, I could understand covering these events fully in real time. They don’t. They  become a forum for Trump to lie, to misdirect, to criticize others for the failings of his administration’s response to the pandemic.

CNN is not the only major media outlet to cease airing the briefings in their entirety. As Yahoo.com reported:

The New York Times, another outlet that has been a target of the Trump administration’s ire, stopped airing the briefings on its website entirely.

“We stopped doing that because they were like campaign rallies,” Elisabeth Bumiller, the paper’s Washington bureau chief, told the Washington Post. “The health experts often have interesting information, so we’re very interested in that, but the president himself often does not.”

Mike Pence petulance rips a page straight from the Donald Trump playbook. It’s disgraceful.

medical news

‘Quickly forgotten,’ Mr. President? Yeah, good luck with that

Donald John Trump is just rarin’ to get the U.S. reopened for business.

He said this via Twitter to drive home the point:

“Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before!!!”

Quickly forgotten, he said. To be fair, at least the president did acknowledge with a single phrase contained in a single sentence that many Americans will be hurting.

Do you get the feeling the expression aimed at “those that sadly lost a family member or a friend” is a throwaway line, something that he felt he needed to say just to assuage critics of the absence of empathy in the president? That is my takeaway.

The president’s continuing message to a nation reeling with anxiety and tragedy from this pandemic continues to concentrate on the economic impact and the “fantastic job” he believes he and his team are doing to stem the infection.

I keep waiting — and I know it’s futile — for the president to speak exclusively about Americans’ pain. I keep waiting for him to offer words of comfort, an expression that he truly gets it, that he hurts right along with them.

I know it’s not coming. I know that this president is incapable of leading us in this time of deep pain and peril.

medical news

VA takes ‘social distancing’ to a new level

In about three weeks I am going to have a first-ever experience, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

I had been scheduled to see my doctor at the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Bonham, Texas. Then I got a phone call from my doc’s nurse, who told me that the doctor doesn’t need to see me in person.

My physician is going to call me around 11 a.m. on the day of my appointment and will visit with me over the phone.

We don’t want to push our luck with this “social distancing” matter in place, the nurse said. I get it, I said. No worries.

I am unclear as to how this “examination” will enable the doctor to determine the state of my health. I suppose she could make me take an oath to tell her “the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth” when she asks me my weight, whether I am continuing to exercise, whether I take my meds regularly.

What about the labs I was supposed to take when I visited the clinic, you know, the bloodwork and peeing into the cup? The nurse said I could go to the clinic “if you want to,” but said I could hold off until the next in-person visit with my doctor.

I’ll wait on that one.

And so … the pandemic has upset one facet of my life. I’ll report back to you how the “examination” goes. I will be anxious to see how my perfectly competent doctor determines whether I continue to enjoy good health.

national news

No compassion, no empathy, no caring for the victims

I admit that today I fell off my Boycott Trump Briefing wagon. I ended up watching a bit of Donald Trump’s alleged “briefing” over what his coronavirus task force is supposedly accomplishing in its fight against the pandemic.

Here’s my takeaway, which mirrors what I have failed to hear from damn near anything that Trump says about this crisis.

What I fail to hear is an emphasis from Trump on the impact this crisis is having on its victims. I hear not a semblance of empathy or sincere concern from this clown. He offers a sentence or two, speaking in platitudes about victims, but I hear no expression of sincere worry or concern about those who are felled by the disease.

He goes on and on about the “numbers.” He seeks to suggest that the “fantastic job” he is doing might drive the death count to far below what the health task force is predicting. The pandemic, according to experts, might kill as many as 240,000 Americans. Now we’re hearing that that the projection might be an inflated number.

Don’t misunderstand me. I would be delighted if the fatality count doesn’t reach the number that some have projected. I also wouldn’t object if we learn that the projection was inflated deliberately, with an expectation that the actual casualty count would come in with far fewer numbers.

What I do not want to hear is Donald Trump claiming false credit for anything he has done. The federal response has been disjointed, disorganized and disgraceful. Donald Trump is the nation’s chief executive and he must assume responsibility for the failures as well as the triumphs.

I want to hear something, anything, from this president that suggests he actually cares about those who are living in agony, whether they are battling the disease themselves or are watching a loved one wage that fight.

I know what you’re thinking. It will be a long wait for that moment to arrive. If it ever does arrive.

In the meantime, I am going to return to boycotting these so-called Trump “briefings.” They sicken me.

political news

Donald Trump: phony-baloney expert

It’s hard to make a determinative conclusion on this matter, but I have long been certain that Donald J. Trump is the prime No. 1 expert on dishing out phony-baloney nonsense.

He said this week that he opposes mail-in voting because it is fraught with corruption. The nation’s current president said mail-in voting invites illegal balloting, that those who aren’t registered to vote are able to do so.

Oh, and as he told his pals at Fox News, mail-in voting would deny the election of Republicans. Oh! That’s it! He said that the greater access to voting for Americans the lesser the chance of electing Republicans.

What an absolute crock of manure!

We face an election this November. We also are in the middle of a huge fight against coronavirus, which has killed more than 14,000 Americans. It is highly infectious and it well might compel this nation to fundamentally change the way we vote for president.

To be absolutely clear, I prefer the old-fashioned method of going to the polling place and casting my ballot while standing in a booth. I dislike early voting. I like the pageantry of Election Day.

But … I am not willing to risk my health or the health of others in the midst of this life-and-death struggle against COVID-19. So, I am willing to take part in a mail-in election.

Several states vote by mail already. Their elections are secure. The votes are calculated accurately. Registered voters get their ballots mailed to them at their homes. They are able to mark their ballots and send them back to the appropriate election agency.

It also increases voter turnout. Isn’t that what we want? Don’t we prefer that more citizens take part in this process than fewer of them? Isn’t that the essence of a democratic society? Not in Donald Trump’s view of the world.

The president wants to restrict voter turnout, sounding to my way of thinking that he endorses what they call “voter suppression.” What’s more, he is dipping into his treasure trove of “big lies” to persuade his base that mail-in voting is corrupt.

It isn’t any more suspect than what we have witnessed in our lifetimes already. Hmm. The 2000 presidential election and the Florida recount fiasco comes to mind.

Donald Trump’s shameless dishing out of baloney is on full display.

Despicable.