Month: September 2020

Years down the road we will have to address lessons learned from this Covid pandemic. Now here I am not referring to medical lessons learned. I am not referring to which medicine worked or which didn’t work. I am not referring to masks . . . are they actually worth anything outside of an easy reminder that distancing is important? Social distancing ? How much? In Europe they use one meter (approximately 3 feet), whereas in the US, 6 feet is apparently without dispute. And finally I am not referring to whether or not singing “Happy Birthday” spreads the virus more than other songs because of certain consonants. (Honest . . . a real issue by some!)

I am referring to the issue of “How much dictatorial power does an elected official have?” If Joe Biden wins in November, and subsequently commands that everybody in the entire U.S. wear a mask at all times when outside, is he overstepping his authority? When a governor says everybody must do X, at what point is he/she overstepping his/her authority. How can someone arbitrarily make some businesses “essential,” and others “non-essential? By what criteria? Out here in California we have a non-elected individual who has been appointed as Health and Human Services Commissioner. He is not an elected representative, yet apparently has the power to close businesses in counties, because certain counties have violated an apparent arbitrary set of criteria on number of cases . . . or does he actually have this power? 

In Wisconsin back in May an appointee of a Democratic Governor arbitrarily made some diktats that were eventually ruled non-constitutional by that state’s Supreme Court. Just recently in Pennsylvania a judge ruled that “the liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms,” and the judge overturned Dem. Gov Wolf’s use of some emergency powers. 

It’s about time, especially when the U.S. Supreme Court recently ducked a religious freedom issue from the state of Nevada . . . perhaps better said that Justice Roberts ducked the issue. (Sometimes when I read some of Justice Roberts’s opinions, I wonder if he is being hypnotized or threatened.)

Hopefully when this Covid mess abates, lawsuits will be filed challenging the dictatorial power of some elected officials and their appointees. Only then will we be able to answer the question, “What have we learned?”

Back in 2016 one of Trump’s classic campaign lies was “What the hell do you have to loose?” This blunt line was directed to black voters, and apparently it connected to some black voters, because in 2016 6% of black voters pulled the lever for Trump. (Of course this means that 94% voted for Clinton.)

Over the last four years the Dems have incessantly called our president a racist, even though he was never accused of being a racist until he ran for president. . . . Hmmm! 

President Trump has done more for African Americans than any president in the last fifty years. Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, and now Trump has done much more than the last several presidents combined, including Barack Obama.

What has he done?

Prior to  the Covid 19 pandemic, Trump’s economic boom had lifted 150,000 black children out of poverty and created the lowest recorded black unemployment rate of 5.4%. He can also take credit for prison reform, as well as added funding for Historic Black Colleges and Universities. Now that the recovery from Covid has started, who do think should be in charge of that economic recovery. A businessman who had done it before or Joe Biden who at this point possibly cannot even spell “economics.” For blacks, whites, yellows, and browns using jobs and the economy as the primary criteria, this choice should be easy.

Back in 2016 Donald Trump called school choice the “civil rights issue of our time.” This is especially true for African Americans who suffer disproportionately because they are often trapped in failing schools. Sleepy Joe is beholden to the teacher’s unions, who always seem to put what benefits them ahead of what benefits the kids. Take a close look at education with online learning … Hey, moms and dads, how’s that working out for you ? 

Well, no matter how dismal it is for you, it’s much worse for the underprivileged black children.

My advice to DJT is to put heavy emphasis on the education of black children. If he follows that advice he will be victorious just like Governor Ron Desantis was in Florida when 100,000 black women, presumably mostly mothers, voted for him as opposed to the black Democrat candidate who did not support school choice.

Sleepy Joe is expecting blacks to vote en masse for him as evidenced by a recent comment of his which was addressed to black voters:

“If you have a problem figuring out on whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” (Hopefully this comment will haunt Basement Joe in 2020, just like Hillary’s “deplorables” comment haunted her in 2016.)

My early prediction: If Trump can garner over 12% of the black vote, he wins in November.

Who is Mark Ghaly M.D., MPH, and basically who cares? Well I, for one, care, as he is the person who is apparently “advising” our Governor on California’s approach to Covid.

Dr. Ghaly is currently is the head of the California Health and Human Services Agency. He was appointed by Governor Newsom back in March, 2019. Prior to that he was a practicing pediatrician and director of health and social impact for the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office.

Yes, you heard me right. A prior practicing pediatrician is now in charge of health care in California. Where does Gavin N. get these guys??

“Director of health and social impact” . . . does anyone know what this means? 

I don’t! Where did Gavin N. get this guy, and why?

Just read on.

Prior to his appointment, Newsom praised Ghaly’s “deep knowledge and understanding of how individual and community health outcomes intersect with policy and law on issues like whole-person care, mental health, and stage-of-life care.” (Sounds like liberal mumbo-jumbo to me.)

Still in 2019: “It was felt that Ghaly would play a pivotal role in the administration, helping prioritize increasing access to health coverage for undocumented adults and restraining health care costs, including drug costs.” 

(Translation = Dr. Ghaly is a leftist that probably went to Harvard med school.)

POLITICO Pro’s Angela Hart reported that Ghaly was chosen, in part, for his work on integrating behavioral and physical health care. Again, I ask what does “integrating behavioral and physical health care” mean?

I am still having trouble believing that of all the physicians in California, Gavin N. chose a pediatrician. (Interestingly just about every pediatrician I know is liberal, and it appears that Dr. Ghaly fits into that mold . . . I would even guess that he went to Harvard under-grad.

• However, more to the point of “why I care.” Well just yesterday, he decided that   the multiple cases being picked up at San Diego State, should count against the tally for our county. Perhaps his decision is based on some made-up tiers – the scientific evidence for which I cannot seem to find. As a consequence probably more unemployment and more business closings fo San Diego County.

The response from Gavin N. and Ghaly is basically. . . tough. Criteria are criteria. (Perhaps he later told his wife, “What do they expect, after all I am only a pediatrician.”)

Now compare this “quality” to that of Scott Atlas M.D., , who is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in Scientific Philosophy & Public Policy at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and a Member of Hoover Institution’s Working Group on Health Care Policy. Dr. Atlas was recently appointed to the White House Covid task force.

Read the following points from an article in the NY Post by Scott Atlas on 9/15/20. (N.B. Dr. Atlas is not a pediatrician.)

He following statements of Dr. Atlas are his opinions as to why colleges, including SDSU, should open up to in-person teaching.

“Science tells us that young adults are at extremely low risk for serious illness or death from COVID-19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that only 0.2 percent of deaths have been in those under age 25.

That’s fewer than 400 deaths in a country of 330 million. That’s also fewer than the 407 from influenza, 4,685 from accidents, 6,759 from suicides and 5,540 from homicides reported in the latest National Vital Statistics report from the CDC.”

(A Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis recently summed up what the entire world’s data consistently demonstrate: The risk for children and young adults dying from the novel coronavirus is “almost zero.”)

Again from Dr.Atlas:

“We are already seeing the negative effects of students not attending school. Almost three-fourths of those aged 18 to 24 reported at least one mental-health symptom by the end of June. A quarter of that age group contemplated suicide in the previous 30 days.”

He continues, “Even most university faculty aren’t at significant risk; two-thirds of them are under 55; only 13 percent are over 65.”

Meanwhile here in San Diego, San Diego State is going to be testing 2400 students this week . . . 2400 students, the vast majority of whom have little, if any symptoms. I am sure that SDSU has theorized some reason why this testing is a good thing, despite the fact that the cases picked up will probably punish the rest of us who live in the county.

I wonder if the head of Health Services at San Diego State is also a pediatrician?

9/21/20

In San Diego one of the measures that has used to determine the level of business closures is what is called “community outbreaks.” A community outbreak is defined as three or more lab-confirmed cases from different households. 

The threshold for community outbreaks was seven or fewer in a week’s span. Arbitrary? Yes, but it sounded at least pseudo-scientific with a modicum of common sense. Here, however, the common sense fell apart. The public was not allowed to know from which business an outbreak occurred. (Basically, “Don’t ask.”)

People around the county were asking, “Was it my gym?”, “Was it my barber shop?”,  “Was it my nail salon?”, “Was it my beauty parlor?

The answer to these types of questions “from those that know 

best” was something like . . . “for your own good,we are not going to tell you.” 

(Basically, “Don’t ask.”)

Hmmm. Okay, I guess that those in charge were tracking and testing those individuals who had been at the guilty beauty shop or the guilty gym. However, when asked which type of business the community outbreak had been traced to . . .  Was it a barber shop? Was it a nail salon? . . . the answer was still the same tripe: “for your own good,we are not going to tell you.” Double Hmmm!

(Basically, “don’t ask.”)

Back then, the response to “too many community outbreaks” was to close all of the above types of businesses. 

I can understand if barber shop A was responsible for a community outbreak, then perhaps barber shop A should be shuttered for a while. Likewise if multiple community outbreaks were traced to multiple beauty parlors, then perhaps all beauty parlors should be closed down for a time. But to close en-masse all barber shops, beauty, parlors, gyms, etc. without telling the public the specifics . . . Triple Hmmm! (Basically, “don’t ask.”)

Now I know that a lot of you are responding something like . . . “They (those in the know) are just looking out for the best interests of the community in general.” If all the barber shops had to be closed because of an increase in community outbreaks at gyms, well that’s the way the cookie crumbles, err, should I say that the way barber shop businesses crumble. Hmmm, to me this makes no sense.

Perhaps those of you who feel that public officials know best and always tell the truth, perhaps a recent revelation out of Nashville will open your eyes.

The following is from Fox 17, WZTV in Nashville:

On June 30th, contact tracing was given a small view of coronavirus clusters. Construction and nursing homes were found to be causing problems with more than a thousand cases traced to each category, but bars and restaurants reported just 22 cases.

Leslie Waller from the health department then asks, “This isn’t going to be publicly released, right? Just info for Mayor’s Office?”

“Correct, not for public consumption,” writes senior advisor Benjamin Eagles . . . (Basically, don’t ask.)

A month later, the health department was asked point blank about the rumor there are only 80 cases traced to bars and restaurants.

Here as confirmed by emails, apparently ‘those that know best’ covered up that bars and restaurants were not the cause of the clusters, but bars and restaurants were kept restricted anyway. Hmmm.

A lot of downtown bartenders, waitresses and restaurant owners are asking why would officials not release these numbers? Hmmm! (Basically, don’t ask.) A lot of people who worked in bars and restaurants remained unemployed while it seems like the Mayor felt that he knew best. Does this sound familiar?

(BTW: The mayor of Nashville is a Democrat.)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away. The 87-year-old lost her battle to metastatic pancreatic cancer. 

In a statement reportedly dictated by her granddaughter Clara Spera days ago, Ginsburg said, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed.”

Ginsburg told The New York Times in 2016, “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president.” 

What came to me when I heard the news was the classic line of Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel: “This is another fine mess you’ve got me into!”

While it’s convenient that RBG supposedly doesn’t want to be replaced until after the November election, it was never her decision to make . . . except perhaps back before the 2016 election.

For whatever reason I retrieved two letters to the editor that I sent to the local paper on 2/16/16.

Her Best Buddy
On 2/14/16, after the death of Justice Scalia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said, “From our years togethert the D.C. Circuit we were best buddies.” Justice Ginsberg, a survivor of both colon cancer and pancreatic cancer, has been on the Court for almost 23 years and is the the oldest Justice on the present court. At this time, perhaps, she could seriously consider retirement and suggest that both a more conservative and a more liberal Justice  be appointed to fill the now two vacated positions. The balance of the Court would be maintained, and perhaps the upcoming political upheaval could be averted.Could there be a more patriotic way to honor her “best buddy”?
Daniel R. Collins

Can’t We All Just Get Along?
President Obama has recently advocated cooperation and compromise but advocates on both sides of the aisle are gearing up for the antithesis of either with regard to the Supreme Court vacancy. If Mr. Obama were sincere in his advocacy of cooperation and compromise, he could accept “the resignation” of Justice Ginsberg and then appoint one conservative justice (to replace Justice Scalia) and one liberal justice ( to replace Justice Ginsberg). The present balance of the Supreme Court would be maintained, and the beneficiary of this compromise would be our country!
Daniel R. Collins

What will happen next ? My thoughts at this time keep reverting to Lee Greenwood’s song: “God Bless the U.S.A.”

After many years of “study” I have concluded that any reasonable observer can tell a lot about the driver of a car by observing his/her bumper sticker(s).

Now here I am not talking about the actual message on the bumper sticker as often the message tells a lot about the driver of the car and this is obvious. Here I am talking about how the bumper sticker is placed on the bumper. 

Those of us who are of a conservative bent will take a modicum of time thinking about the placement of the bumper sticker, but this is often not the case with a liberal. Like I said my studying of this issue has led me to conclude that if the bumper sticker is on crooked, then the owner of the car is a liberal. The next time you see a bumper sticker, look at its placement on the bumper before concentrating on the message that the bumper sticker is conveying. Sure a lot of bumper stickers are neutral . . . “My son is a star pupil at xxxx elementary school.” while some are pretty obvious . . . “Can’t we all just along!” No matter the message, if it is on crooked, the owner of the car is a liberal.

Now there is an even better clue as to what kind of person is driving a car. You can take this one to the bank! If the driver of the car is wearing a face mask . . . whoa, Nellie! . . . that person is over the top! What person wears a face mask when driving alone in a car? What type of person wears a face mask while driving in a car accompanied by his/her son, daughter, husband, or good friend? While it might be possible that the person sitting in the passenger seat is a stranger (perhaps, a hitchhiker), the odds are much higher that the driver is a liberal Karen/Ken. (Furthermore, I would guess that some of these “I’ll wear my mask in my car to protect me from the coronavirus,” even wear their masks while inside their homes . . .  as “you can never be too safe.”)

Is there a correlation between the wearing of a mask while driving a car and the crookedness of the bumper sticker on that car? To be honest, I haven’t studied this extensively enough to be sure, but my prediction will be “yes!”

I never thought that I would ever come to point that I would think that Europe is doing things better than the US. To be more precise . . . better than individual states, and certainly better than California. But sad to say, this is exactly what is happening. 

For instance. . . . sending kids back to school. Multiple individual European countries are light years ahead of multiple different states when it comes to children and their going back to school. Everyone who has looked at this realizes that the disservice being done to children far outweighs any good that is coming from online distance learning. Many countries in Europe are eons ahead of most states in the US, including the chaos that is otherwise known as California.

However, today I read in the NYT something interesting spoken by France’s Emmanuel Macron. His message about the coronavirus is “to learn how to live with the virus.” France as well as a lot of other European countries are choosing coexistence with this virus. They are going back to work and school, trying to live their lives close to what they used to, albeit with masks and social distancing. Yes, the number of cases are going up, due in large part by the dramatic increase in testing. However despite this increase, the death rate is not going up and is nowhere near what it had been earlier this year.

Again from the NYT:

“It is not possible to stop the virus,” said Emmanuel André, a leading virologist in Belgium. “It’s about maintaining equilibrium.”

The health minister of Italy concurs, “We are in a living-with-the-virus-phase.”

Perhaps the governor of California should get some people on his staff that speak French, or Italian, rather than just Democratese, so that he can be advised better as to what to do now, before he gets recalled.

Let’s briefly review the logic of lockdowns. In the beginning there was actually some logic involved. In case you don’t recall the logic of locking down everybody and just about everything was to insure that there were enough ventilators and ICU beds available to care for those who were very ill as a consequence of Covid 19. However, after that initial deluge of cases, things changed. (BTW: whenever you read an article about Covid and you see that the number of cases “surged,” or are now “surging,” you already know that the article is of the “woe are we” genre. Angry mobs can surge, waves can surge, but the number of Covid cases can increase or climb, but not surge.)

At present there are plenty of ventilators and  plenty of ICU beds . . . so why are we still in some sort of lockdown? The reason is because the strike zone has changed, and appears to continue to change often. In the guise of appearing scientific. Here in California those ‘who know best’ have made up four different levels of alarm . . . four different tiers with color codes and scary words like “widespread,” “substantial,” etc. As best I can tell these tiers are all arbitrary, err all “made up!” (I am still searching for any scientific data that actually backs up these tiers.) For example, a case rate of >7.0/ 100,000 county residents for two weeks in a row automatically drops that county down a tier with the accompanying closure of some businesses. Why 7.0? Why not 7.1 or 7.5?  Did someone throw a dart at a dartboard to come up with this hard and fast cutoff?

Here in San Diego County(SDC), there is an interesting left-hand, right-hand dichotomy occurring before our very eyes. The most recent stats indicate that the last measured incidence rose to 7.9 cases per 100,000 residents in SDC. OMG – a “surge!” If this case rate sustains at >7.0 for another week, then according to the arbitrary tier criterion, SDC will drop from “substantial” to “widespread,” with the accompanying dire re-closures of more businesses. (ICU beds are still okay, and ventilators are in surplus . . . remember these were the original concerns that led to lockdowns.)

So what is the dichotomy? SDC case rates are “surging,” so, I guess, too bad for all of the consequent economic hardship. The fly in the ointment, so to speak, is that the recent increase in the number of county cases is due to the recent cases in students returning to San Diego State University. Thus far SDSU has 676 definite plus nine probable Covid cases . . . perhaps more precise to say 676 positive tests, as the vast majority of these “cases” have minimal or no symptoms. These student “cases” do not put our ICU beds or our ventilators at risk, as these young 18-22 year olds very rarely get sick enough to require hospitalization. The case rate in SDC if SDSU students are not counted is 6.0/100,000 county residents . . . oops! Let me get this straight . . . the state government is on the verge of instituting a more severe state ordered economic lockdown on SDC, because college students are having more positive tests.

What makes this situation bordering on the even more absurd is that “the left hand,” SDSU is planning on a “surge” of mandatory testing of the 2400 students living on campus over the next few days . . . this occurring while “the right hand” is potentially going to be punished because “the left hand” is going to discover a bunch of positive tests in low risk individuals, most of whom have little or no symptoms.

Does anybody recall who “Scut Farkus” was ? I would guess that everybody has seen the movie, “Christmas Story,” a lot of us more than once. At one point in the movie the protagonist, Ralphie has had enough of Scut Farkus, the bully. Farkus is the prototypical bully always beating up on Ralphie, his brother, and his friends. At one point after getting hit in the eye with a Farkus thrown snowball, Ralphie proceeds to beat the sh*t out of Scut in a blind fury (which Ralphie, who narrates the film, describes as saying that “a fuse blew” and he had gone “out of his skull.”)

I think pretty much we can all sympathize with someone who is being bullied. In fact I think that everyone who has witnessed someone being bullied, hopes that  the victim rises up and beats the crap out of the bully. 

On September 13, 2020 the Atlantic tried its best to be a Scut Farkus. (Yes, that same Atlantic that tried to snooker Americans into believing the un-believable, when they published some fantasized story of Trump saying a bunch of disgusting things about the military. No one with an ounce of sense, believed what was said in the far-left Atlantic’s article. They did however manage to get a lot of publicity, mostly in the form of ridicule.)

So for the Atlantic . . . if lying doesn’t work, might as well try bullying. 

The following is from a very recent article by Shadi Hamid in the Atlantic on 9/13/20:

“I find myself truly worried about only one scenario: that Donald Trump will win, and the Democrats and others on the far left will be unwilling, even unable to accept the result.” (So far a very realistic scenario.)

The article continues, “I struggle to imagine how millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. (Actually somewhat of an oxymoron as Democrats do not really “process” very much or very often.)

But then out comes the Scut Farkus-like bullying threat. To paraphrase Mr./Ms. Hamid . . . A loss by Biden will result in more social unrest and street battles that cities . . . have seen in recent months. 

He concludes, “For this reason law-and-order Republicans . . . have an interest in Biden winning.”

OMG! 

I then googled that scene from the Christmas Story and twice watched Ralphie pummel Scut Farkus.  I cheered each time.

I cannot believe that Hamid thinks that Americans can be bullied into voting for Sleepy Joe by threatening riots in response to a possible Trump victory. When I read this latest tomfoolery from  the Atlantic, I just became more determined to beat the crap out of the left in the upcoming election . . . just like Ralphie!

Are any of you non-medical readers aware of the Zelenko Protocol? Are any of you that are/were involved in medicine familiar with the Zelenko Protocol? When my next book, The Keneally Chronicles, comes out, you can read how the Zelenko Protocol saved many lives in a small fictitious college town in the American Southwest.

Drumroll please: The Zelenko Protocol is a triple therapy that is purportedly  very helpful in treating patients in the early stages of their Covid infection. 

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko describes himself as “just a simple country doctor” from Kiryas Joel, a small village of 35,000 north of NYC. Since early March, his clinic had treated people with coronavirus-like symptoms, and he had developed an experimental treatment consisting of an antimalarial medication called hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and zinc sulfate.

After testing this three-drug cocktail on hundreds of patients, some of whom had only mild or moderate symptoms when they arrived, Dr. Zelenko claimed that 100 percent of them had survived the virus with no hospitalizations and no need for a ventilator.

“I’m seeing tremendous positive results,” he said in a March 21 video, which was addressed to President Trump and eventually posted to YouTube and Facebook.

Okay, so what’s the big deal? 

An county family doctor claimed wonderful results in treating a few hundred patients with his own made-up triple therapy. It was not a “randomized controlled trial,” that the American guru of Covid had recommended. It was just a non-randomized treatment that Dr. Zelenko used in his office on his own patients. (Yes, this middle-aged physician, who has had cancer himself, does actually see patients, as opposed to the American guru who does not.) His was not a scientific study. It was never meant to be a scientific study. Dr. Zelenko was merely reporting his own anecdotal experience.

Okay, so what’s the big deal ?

Well to me, the big deal was the over-the-top reaction to the Zelenko Protocol.

Both Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine soon published studies that trashed the benefit of the Zelenko Protocol. Both of these prestigious medical journals later retracted these stories, as the data was bogus. What was the rush to publish these studies? While the retractions went virtually unnoticed, the harm to the Zelenko Protocol had been done.

Governors of some states dictated that pharmacists in their states should not fill prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). To me that is a BIG DEAL! On August 17, 2020 the American Spectator published a long article by George Parry, entitled “Questions for Dr. Fauci,” which to the best of my knowledge have never been answered. This article expressed opinions by a group of pro-HCQ physicians, whose videos had been taken down by Facebook and Google! Why the over-the-top reaction to a differing opinion?

The anti-HCQ mob then next published articles saying how dangerous HCQ was, albeit at some absurd dose. This despite its use for 60 years in the treatment of malaria, and its use for decades in treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus . . . ? All of the sudden this drug was now unsafe!?  (What’s the Big Deal? . . .  Something is rotten in Denmark!)

I then looked at the Covid stats on “worldometers.” I wanted to compare the incidences and the deaths rates/ million in African nations and in the US. Logic would dictate that the death rate/million population would be less where the medical care was better. NOT THE CASE!

Also one would expect that the incidence of Covid/million population would be less in that country with better hygiene, lockdowns, and masks. NOT THE CASE . . . in fact, NOT CLOSE!

The four African nations that I chose atrandom, . . . Nigeria(N),Kenya(K),Zambia(Z), and Senegal(S), had dramatically less of an incidence of Covid/million population [N=271, K=666, Z=733, S=849] than did the US [20,000].

These African nations also had dramatically less Covid deaths/million population. [N=5, K=11, Z=17, S=18] compared to the US [598].

Is it possible that these unbelievable and certainly not anticipated stats could reflect the fact that many many people in Africa take HCQ for malaria and malaria prophylaxis?

I have not heard Dr. Fauci mention this African dichotomy. 

Come-on, Dr. Fauci, “What’s the big deal?”