Tag: pandemic

Return Of The Mask

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve been pretty much mute on this site for the past few months. Without Trump and his cadre of dimwits mucking up just about everything foreign and domestic it’s hard to get all that worked up about the by comparison minor problems we all face.

Gee. And I’m not convinced that Uncle Joe is playing with a full deck, but after more than a year worrying that you might catch a deadly virus just by leaving the house in a futile search for toilet paper, it’s kinda nice to be able to return to public venues such as supermarkets without having to wear a mask. I imagine that for many shoppers this brings the same level of joy and excitement that one would experience visiting a nude beach. I digress.

But whoa Nellie. It might not be totally safe to dip your toes in the water just yet.

Here’s from a story published by CNBC:

The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe.

“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.

“Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

The health organization’s comments come as some countries, including the United States, have largely done away with masks and pandemic-related restrictions as the Covid vaccines have helped drive down the number of new infections and deaths.

Say what?

So in literary terms we can paraphrase the Bard: To mask or not to mask? That is the question.

During my working life I spent around 40 years in various communications related jobs. And I can say without fear of contradiction that the messaging throughout this pandemic has been a fiasco.

Here’s the advice from the CDC: Everyone should wear a mask and social distance. Well, maybe that’s not really necessary. But if you are inclined to wear a mask, maybe one isn’t enough. Why not try two or more. And so on.

And getting vaccinated is really the only way to protect yourself and others. But if you don’t want to get vaccinated (hat tip here to the former POTUS) maybe a shot of Clorox is all you need.

So it goes.

In any event, at a time when most people in the USA would rather die than continue to wear a face mask, WHO officials are encouraging people to cover up. Good luck with that. Many people, for whatever irrational reason, have decided they aren’t going to get the vaccine. And even getting a shot at a million bucks via a state lottery ain’t going to change that.

And it would be nice if someone in charge actually provided some guidance that met the test of time.

Oh, well.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers. So I guess like most people I’ll continue to rely on the Internet for medical advice.

Let’s hope for the best.

2020: Good Riddance

Well, I guess unless you are Jeff Bezos or one of the other billionaires who have made a financial killing off of the pandemic that defined 2020, I’m sure you will agree that it is a blessing to now be looking at the disaster of last year in the rearview mirror.

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But if nothing else, we learned last year just how inept our federal government is at responding to a national crisis. Folks, without putting too fine a point on it, if this were the best we could do in the early 1940s we would all be speaking German or Japanese now. So it goes.

In fact, with nearly 350,000 Americans (and counting) being killed by the Trump Virus, we have already surpassed the number of deaths of American military men and women during WW2. Here’s from Business Insider:

The US saw 291,557 battle deaths during World War II, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I wonder how the Trump-supporting mask-holes are getting along with their claims that this pandemic is a hoax, while clinging to absorb conspiracy theories that Biden and the Dems somehow stole the election.

 

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I digress.

Anyway, I’m reasonably optimistic that 2021 will be better.

It appears that a vaccine for the virus is beginning to make its way into arms of Americans throughout the country.

And we can look forward to the return of some actual Presidential leadership in less than a month — even if the current POTUS has to be carried from the Oval Office in leg irons.

 

 

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So let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best in 2021.

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But in any event, for 2020: good riddance.

Trump: You’re Fired

Well, I’ve been mute on these pages since the election in early November. And I don’t really have a good excuse other than the events we are watching play out in this country seem to be pulled more from the pages of a fiction novel than from reality.

Even though I won’t get universal agreement on this, it’s a safe bet to say that Joe Biden will be our next President, whether the current Doofus-in-Chief ever concedes or not.

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Trump and millions of his supporters continue to press the case that the election was rigged, with the current occupant of the White House getting the short end of the stick. Unfortunately for this gaggle of armchair legal and constitutional experts, Trump’s crack legal team has not produced any evidence that supports their claim of fraud.

And let’s be honest. Trump’s legal team is an embarrassment. Even Trump apparently agrees with this assessment. Here’s from a report via CNBC:

President Donald Trump is worried his campaign’s legal team, led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is composed of “fools that are making him look bad,” NBC News reported.
Giuliani and other campaign lawyers have so far failed to invalidate votes and reverse an apparent victory for President-elect Joe Biden.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday called Trump’s legal team a “national embarrassment.

Admittedly, it’s not hard to make Trump look bad. But his legal gurus are doing everything they can to cement his legacy as the worst President in recent memory, if not in history.

Anyway, elections, as Obama told McCain as they battled over health care, have consequences. And the consequences of Trump’s refusal to concede and help the transition are very real. For instance: (1) the USA used to be viewed as the world’s greatest democracy; now our position in the world pecking order can’t be much above a Banana Republic; (2) the Biden and Harris team should be getting daily national security briefings; just because Trump apparently can’t read or understand them doesn’t mean that they aren’t important; and (3) there needs to be coordination between the two administrations that allows us to take immediate steps to get this pandemic under control.

Okay. I know that Trump and his Republican lackeys have poisoned the well of public opinion on this. Their supporters believe this pandemic is a hoax, despite more than a quarter million deaths and counting in the USA. And they have encouraged millions to view wearing a face covering and taking steps to social distance as being an attack on their personal liberties. 

 

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Like I said previously, this all reads like something from a bad fiction novel. And it’s hard to turn the page when crackpots like Rudy Giuliani continue to dominate the airwaves, spouting unfounded legal conspiracies and dripping with hair dye.

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It appears that Rudy would have been better off staying in the hotel room with Borat’s daughter. I digress.

In any event, it looks like we are starting to inch our way to some resolution of these national issues.

The General Services Administration is allowing the apparent winner of the election (that’s Joe Biden, in case you are still confused by all this) to get the resources he needs to begin the necessary transition.

And Rudy’s position in history has been pretty much assured.

In less than 20 years, he has gone from being America’s Mayor to being America’s Biggest Douchebag.

As Trump would say: Sad.

A Dark Winter Ahead

I have to give Joe Biden credit for the headline on the post: A Dark Winter Ahead. That’s what he said during last week’s Presidential debate, when he was throwing shade on Trump’s rosy (and wrong) evaluation that the USA was rounding the corner and the pandemic would soon be just a bad memory.

Unfortunately, facts tend to overshadow the predictions that we hear from Dofus-in-Chief and his merry band of compliant bootlickers.

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Oh, boy.

It appears that the USA is now in the midst of a second or third wave of the virus with no end in sight. More than eight million Americans have contracted the virus, and it has killed more than 230,000 (along with Trump’s presidency, most likely). And amazingly enough, we’re recording more than 80,000 new cases a day now as we are heading into the holidays. Good luck to Grandma as she tries to fix Thanksgiving dinner following a stay in the intensive care unit. I digress.

Anyway, I admit that I never thought I would still be writing about this national fiasco as we approach winter with snow on the ground here in Colorado.

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And part of the problem is that Trump has provided no leadership or responsible decision-making in response to this national crisis. In fact, he has done the opposite and taken measures that have further divided the country while going against the advice of health care professionals.

In Trump World, you are a patriot if you refuse to wear a face mask, even though health experts believe that this simple act might be more effective in defeating the virus than a vaccine.

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So it goes.

Since Trump’s response has been so anemic and pathetic, clearly someone has to take the blame. And guess what. That person now appears to be the good doctor Fauci.

Here’s what Trump said last week at a campaign rally (super spreader event?) in Arizona, according to the Chicago Tribune:

“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said of the government’s top infectious disease expert. “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb. But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci’s a disaster.”

Well, gee. What should we make of that critique from POTUS?

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It’s going to be a long, dark winter.

Congress At Work. Well, Maybe Not

Okay. To say that this country is a mess right now is certainly an understatement.

Our economy brings back bad memories of the Great Depression.

Millions are unemployed and may never return to their original job if they happen to depend on one of the thousands of businesses that have been forced to close and might not reopen.

Tens of thousands of Americans have died from the Trump Virus, with the number increasing each day by as many as one death every 80 seconds.

And we are about to reopen schools during a pandemic, putting millions of students (and their families), teachers, administrators and support staff at risk.

Gee. You would think that this is a time that would demand common sense — and leadership.

But alas, both are in shorter supply than toilet paper.

It’s really no fun any more writing about Trump and his ineptitude. If nothing else, POTUS defines the Peter Principle. Sad.

But what about Congress?

Certainly we should be able to rely on leadership during this crisis from the men and women who we send to Washington to act in the public interest.

Well, no.

Clearly, people throughout the nation need enhanced unemployment and income protections, health care insurance, limits on being evicted from their houses or apartments and yada, yada, yada. Bernie: Where are you when we need you? I digress.

Well, while the nation burns, members of Congress can’t do much more than fiddle.

Here’s from CNN:

Washington (CNN)Don’t expect a another stimulus check anytime soon.

While there’s bipartisan support for a second round of direct payments, negotiators have walked away from talks without a deal, and most lawmakers have now returned to their home states.Congress let three key coronavirus relief programs created in March — enhanced unemployment benefits, eviction protection and a small business loan program — expire during the past two weeks.
In the meantime, the economy is showing few signs of recovering from the pandemic. Thirty million people are collecting unemployment, consumer spending is down 8% from January and the number of open small businesses has fallen 18%. The unemployment rate remains higher than at any time during the Great Recession.

I’m not sure what relief members of Congress should focus on. But you would think that something needs to be done. And sooner rather than later.

So what has created the logjam?

A simple explanation:

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Or another:

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I’ll admit that I am becoming fairly discouraged by the inaction that we see every day from our elected representatives in Congress and in the White House.

Come November, it might be a good time for us to vote in a way that advances the agenda of the American people.

And those who are thrown out of office as a result can always find a new gig as a lobbyist or as a talking head on Fox News or MSNBC.